Ever since Star Trek Enterprise went and got itself cancelled (due to the bad decisions of its producers, such as not focusing on the Earth-Romulan War, and despite the much better fourth season that came too late to save it), Star Trek fans have had no new Star Trek to watch–except for fan productions like Star Trek New Voyages.
Now it looks like they may.
When Enterprise was cancelled it was stated (a) that there would indeed be future Star Trek productions (Paramount would be foolish to simply let the franchise die) but (b) there would be no new TV show for some time (Paramount would be foolish to put a new one on too soon, before the demand for one had had a chance to build again) and (c) the most likely next installment of the franchise would be a movie.
Rumors circulated around Hollywood for some time about what this movie might be about–possibly the Earth-Romulan War . . . possibly the story of how Kirk and Spock first met (these being the most logical two stories to try to tell next).
Now Paramount has officially announced the movie.
And it’s signed major talent to oversee it: J. J. Abrams, the guy behind Lost and Alias and Mission Impossible III.
Of course, the movie–or Abrams involvement in it–may not work out. Hollywood is a notoriously entropic place, meaning that deals have a tendency to fall apart there.
It sounds, at present, like Abrams and his team are currently thinking about doing the Kirk-Spock story, using new actors to play the young characters.
Which is why I mentioned New Voyages earlier: The New Voyages folks have decided that these characters are iconic enough in our culture that they should not be forever tied to the particular actors who originated them, the way Hamlet or MacBeth or the Mikado are not tied to the actors who originally played those parts.
In other words: Fans should learn to disassociate the characters from the actors.
This would allow the franchise to tell new stories about established and interesting characters and not have to invent and then sell to the fans a whole new cast every time one cast needed to retire.
Y’know: The way James Bond and Sherlock Holmes have been played by something like fifty guys each.
And there’s a reason I mention Star Trek XI and its possible recasting of major parts.
More on that tomorrow.
In the meantime,
and
An idea was floated a couple of years ago by J. Michael Straczynski to not only change actors, but to reboot the entire Star Trek universe. A common occurence in comics and something that after 5 series and 10 movies might be in order. Part of the pitch can be found at http://bztv.typepad.com/newsviews/files/ST2004Reboot.pdf (warning: about 650kb pdf). Wish that had happened. JMS did wonders with Babylon 5.
And there’s a reason I mention Star Trek XI and its possible recasting of major parts.
Jimmy Akin as Scotty?
I have seen both J.J Abrams’ good work (Lost has had some good redemptive suffering stories) and his bad work (that whole Rambaldi thing on ‘Alias’). It might work out.
Well as long as Berman and Braga are not involved, I’m willing to give it a try.
–arthur
Might we hope to see Lt. Uhura in this latest movie?
My apologies to the serious Trekkies.
*resists urge to bash B5*
Larry: on the other hand, comic book fans tell me that his Spiderman reboot left alot to be desired, and that’s a creative situation closer to the one on Trek than to the one on B5.
I dropped out of comics before he took over Spidey, and I was always a DC guy anyway. Still…someone has to do something with Trek. It’s too good to let pass, but it’s been fairly awful overall the past decade or so.
Personally I think continuity is overrated.
Continuity within the same particular series? Yes, that’s important. But across everything that ever treats the same universe/characters?
The choice shouldn’t have to be between letting a continuity collapse under its own weight or rebooting into a new one (only to have to reboot again later…), especially as rebooting has a tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I think I’d rather see an approach something like what was done for the new series of Doctor Who. They didn’t burn every bridge with the old continuity, but kept only the best pieces. Tried new things using selected existing continuity as scaffolding.
(Granted, in the case of that particular series I’m not all that keen on some of the new things which were introduced. But I think the basic idea is still sound.)
Anyway, as others have said, I don’t hold out much hope for Star Trek so long as Berman and Braga continue to be involved.
(Admittedly, the two did do the sort of thing I was thinking about with Enterprise — it’s just that I think they just made some really bad choices in doing it.)
Must-keep-checking-Jimmy’s-blog…NOOO!!! More sci-fi talk!!!!
Not this comic-book fan. 🙂 Spider-Man is my lifelong favorite super-hero (as I believe I mentioned in my review of Spider-Man 2), and as one who has read Spider-Man comic books — on and off — over nearly three decades, I think JMS’s stuff is terrific.
The majority of fans also seem to have been pleased.
If JMS hadn’t done successful work on Amazing Spiderman, Marvel wouldn’t have offered him several other titles in addition.
The first and last seasons of Enterprise were my favorites of the whole franchise. But if they aren’t going to follow that up, maybe they can get started with characters during the Earth-Romulan War in a ship slightly ahead of the X series, and continue with a situation where they aren’t perfect, are still more like us, and the local area of stars is still a very strange place, and we are still the ignorant new kids on the block. That works a lot better, IMO, but then I think B5 was the best ever.
I have to say it bothers me when people express the idea that anything Rick Berman does has to be bad. I am of the firm belief that the reason for the failure of Star Trek is not Rick Berman but it is the fans. Somewhere along the line they got the idea that anything Rick Berman did was terrible and so no matter what he did they would not accept it.
I’m the first to say that the last few seasons of Voyager were terrible, and I think this is where the problem fans had with Berman began, at least in part.
But the first few weren’t. They had a charm to them, and in a certain way recaptured that frontier spirit that TOS had so much of; each episode was an adventure not knowing what the next planet would hold or what alien would show up next. The Next Generation was a great program, but it didn’t have this. Every episode began with the crew showing up at some charted planet for some prearranged mission with Starfleet only a subspace communique away. The episodes where the creators broke from this forumla, or at least based the plot around an unexpected mission in a known area, were the memorable ones: Yesterday’s Enterprise, Qpid, Frame of Mind, and all th Holodeck episodes to mention a few.
Star Trek Nemesis, for instance, was a pretty good movie. It bombed at the box office because so many of the fans utterly refused to see it because of Berman’s involvement. The faulure of Enterprise was similar. The point I am making is that Berman was involved with quite a few good things, but the fanbase wouldn’t accept them simply because he was involved.
I’ve been loving JMS’s run on Amazing, too. (Except this recent stuff about Peter revealing his ID to the world. But that’s a Civil War thing.) I did not enjoy the recent The Other storyline, though. But JMS’s issues were the best.
I, like Larry, am a DC fella. Mostly ‘cos of Batman. Spidey is 2nd only to the Dark Knight for me! (Followed very closely by Superman. BTW, SGD, I totally agree with your review of Superman Returns. I really love that movie! )
Star Trek, IMO, is in need of a reboot along the lines of Battlestar Galactica. (But without the overt sex, please. Drives me nuts.) I mean I’d love to see Trek done in a real-world, plausible way like BSG has been recently. That would be very cool! That’s what made B5 so wonderful. But I think JMS’s take on ST would have been even better than that. Sadly, I guess we’ll never know.
How do you reboot historical fact?? You can’t reinvent reality. You may as well teach our kids in school that they used dinosaurs to help fight the Civil War.
The Star Trek Universe is what it is, and it can never be anything but.
Really now, what are you guys smoking over there?
On a related note, some of that historical fact has been preserved in many of the Star Trek novels that have been published. Rather than trying to write new stories out of whole cloth, they should simply adopt what has already been proven to be good and make movies out of the books. I haven’t read the books in a long time, but I do remember one that was about a young Jim Kirk and his brother Sam at the Academy.
“How do you reboot historical fact?? You can’t reinvent reality. You may as well teach our kids in school that they used dinosaurs to help fight the Civil War.”
But dinosaurs *did* help fight the Civil War!
Confederosaurus Rex was a terror to behold fighting alongside Stonewall Jackson’s men, snatching Yankees up in his jaws by the dozen!
“How do you reboot historical fact?? You can’t reinvent reality. You may as well teach our kids in school that they used dinosaurs to help fight the Civil War.
The Star Trek Universe is what it is, and it can never be anything but.”
See my argument over on the OTHER THREAD.
The Star Trek Universe WE know is only the history of ONE particular universe within the Star Trek MULTIVERSE. We’ve already gotten glimpses into some of the OTHER universes in that multiverse, such as the “Mirror, Mirror” universe, where Capt. Kirk and the Enterprise crew exist, but are different from in the history we know.
I can’t see any reason why a new Star Trek series couldn’t be set in one of those similar-but-with-some-differences universes. 🙂
I have seen both J.J Abrams’ good work (Lost has had some good redemptive suffering stories) and his bad work (that whole Rambaldi thing on ‘Alias’).
WHAT?!? You lumped ‘Alias’ in with Abram’s bad work? ‘Alias’ was awesome (although the second-to-last season was roughshod, but that’s because all the best writers went to work on ‘Lost’).
If we’re gonna start naming bad Abrams’ works, let’s put ‘Felicity’ at the front of the list. The only good thing about ‘Felicity’ is that it introduced Jennifer Garner to the world.
Jamie,
I didn’t say everything on ‘Alias’ was bad, just the over-extended Rambaldi story-line.
Continuity *is* vastly overrated. Better, I think, to reinvent the mythology with ever retelling, keeping what was best about the last iteration of a tale and cutting out the excess garbage. Also, Mr. Akin, you are right: it would be interesting to see how other actors interpret the roles of James T. Kirk and Doctor McCoy. I, in my insidiousness, want to see Russell Crow play Mr. Spock, because Vulcans with Australian accents may be the best idea ever.
Best. Idea. Ever!
Australian Vulcans?
Well, that would explain the presence of that firepot….
“Good-oh. I’ll put some plomeek soup on the barbie for ya, mate.”
I think it would be really interesting to see a different actors take on Spock. see what he adds to the star trek universe.