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Where will the Trek franchise go from here? And where would the Strangers and Aliens like to see it go?
See . . . Dr. Jayce put the guys on the spot when he asks for their Next Generation dream cast!
Hear . . . their predictions for the future of the franchise!
Witness . . . Ben and Steve argue about who had more popularity: George Takei in the ’80s or John Cho right now.
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I thought I’d try posting my answer to your question before listening to the podcast – then I’ll chime in again (probably at length) after listening.
From here, I wouldn’t mind seeing the franchise return to TV, set in the Abramsverse but focusing on another starship with new characters, with meaty stories and even several long story arcs, perhaps leading into (but not inexorably tied to) “Star Trek 3.” Let’s have regular alien characters that are new from the Abramsverse – e.g., folks like the “Lobot” or the Gold Gila Monster-headed Woman from the Enterprise bridge (or even that big-eyed doctor from the 09 film) – and let’s have a real mandate *that we stick to* to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Leave the riffs and tweaks of the Prime Universe mythology to the ongoing IDW comics.
As for “Star Trek 3,” the general consensus in the blogosphere and podcast-verse seems to be that war with the Klingons is inevitable, but just because paranoid, hawkish, wacko Admiral Marcus thinks it is doesn’t mean it’s so. I suppose the Klingons could find out that Starfleet personnel transgressed on Kronos in “Darkness” and be reasonably angry about that, but I’d rather not have a “war with the Klingons” movie. Ho hum. Having “John Harrison” and his crew reawakened to wreak havoc also seems a logical if predictable option.
A less obvious but perhaps more original idea might be to reivist Nibiru and see what the fall-out from the violation of the Prime Directive is….?
Well, I guess I should have listened before commenting, above… hopefully I did not ruin too much for anyone.
I am unsure why on earth you guys want to see TNG rebooted. Likewise, why do you want to see old stories from any of the series retold?
My biggest beef with this new Trek movie is that they went to such lengths in 09 to give themselves a clean slate. I can’t understand this desire I’m hearing from several quarters to see the basic same old ground recovered. If they’re going to do something new, do something new.
As entertaining as an “old material reimagined” movie may be, it is also fundamentally a failure of nerve and imagination to do otherwise.
Give the current generation of TV or movie audiences (and those of us old-timers who are willing to give the new stuff a fair shake) *completely new* characters to enjoy, get to know, eventually maybe come to love. Why should any future iterations of the Abramsverse be forever tied and compared to the old stuff? Most illogical.
They should do a brand new approach – for example, this would have been cool: http://trekmovie.com/2012/11/16/scripts-revealed-for-scrapped-star-trek-final-frontier-animated-series/
The only “reboot” idea you guys floated that I really liked was the Gary Seven idea, since it never came to fruition originally. (I wonder if it wasn’t a Doctor Who-inspired idea to begin with, frankly.) Whom would you cast in the Gary, Roberta, and Isis roles?
Otherwise, I’m with Ben: new ship, new crew, new adventures, on TV. Then give them a big two-hour blockbuster as their series finale, 7 or so years down the road.
(NO Section 31! Hasn’t that done enough damage already? Sheesh.)
I thought I’d be the first to chime in on this. Last Friday I attended the premiere of the “Star Trek Continues” at the Phoenix Comic Con. This picks up where the original classic series left off in 1969 and is a live web action series. The first episode is a what happened after to the “Who Mourns for Adonis”. Victor Joseph “Vic” Mignogna plays Captain Kirk.
Positive points:
1. The whole look of this new series is very consistence with the original series. The sets, lighting, camera angles, color effects, special effects, music, the actor mannerisms, character interaction, ship models are all spot on. Recently I’ve been re-watching some of the original first season episodes on Hulu and it is amazing how close “Star Trek Continues” gets to the original series.
2. The overall writing, dialog, plot and pacing of the episode is very consistent with episodes of the original series.
3. They brought back Michael Forest the actor who played Adonis in the original episode. Forest did a very credible performance despite being in his 80s.
Problematic issues
1. Probably the greatest problem here is can we accept the new actors in their roles as Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and so forth? William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy. DeForest Kelly and the others become TV icons for their characters. The new movie series played it well by having the new Kirk and Spock in an alternative universe. This makes it easier for the diehard Star Trek fans to accept the new actors. However this is not possible for “Star Trek Continues”. Having said that Chris Doohan is the best in capturing his father’s role as Scotty. He does a great Scotty. “Vic” Mignogna does a credible Kirk–he is actually better looking and more muscular than Shatner. The actor who did Spock is fair not great. Perhaps the least convincing is the actress (Kim Stinger) who played Uhura. Nichelle Nichols was a very beautiful woman. McCoy (Larry Nemecek) isn’t quite right for Kelly’s role (too large, too husky, not enough passion).
2. The other main issue —is there enough interest in the Classic franchise to do a continued voyages to fill out that original 5 year mission. As a kid back in the 1960s I felt short-changed that the series didn’t at least have a five year run to complete those mission adventures. Well here is our chance to see them, over 40 years later, but are there enough of us out there to make this viable financially in 2013. A lot of Star Trek water has gone under the bridge since 1969.
Overall I very much enjoyed “Star Trek Continues” and wish it every success. You guys may want to do a podcast on this.
I agree with Michael, I don’t see any point in rehashing any era of Trek we’ve already seen. Maybe I’m becoming a Star Trek Scrooge, but I’d rather see the franchise go nowhere than head down the path it’s going. I dislike what they’re doing with the new films almost completely, but even if I thought they were OK I wouldn’t see the point in covering this ground again, even with the new elements they’ve added. They should have taken a page from the Star Trek Online game and set the new films a few decades after Nemesis.
There is one specific Star Trek story I’d like told, though. It would never happen as a movie, but I’d like to hear about how the Borg became Borg, if whatever race they first developed from decided to do that willingly, or if some were for it or against it, maybe forming a resistance (too much like Terminator, maybe?), and so on.
Andrew – Given the surprising (to my mind, anyway) number of nods to ST-TMP in both Abrams films thus far (the Admiral uniforms, “They gave her back to me,” the possible Deltan at helm in Into Darkness, aliens clearly visible in the 1701 crew), maybe they want to do something with Roddenberry’s speculation that the Borg homeworld was the machine planet Voyager 6 encountered?
I agree that I would have preferred another leap forward into Trek’s future, but I would have gone more than a few decades. Say it’s the 25th or 26th century, but keep the backstory to a minimum – then fill it in gradually, as the TNG era series did. When TNG premiered, you really needed little to know knowledge of TOS to watch and enjoy, and yet it was all part of the same canon.
Or, frankly, a clean reboot might have been better. I was a big booster of the “reboot-within-the-canon” option that the 09 film took, but now Into Darkness shows us how that can be a lazy storytelling “out.” Unlike you, I am (in my better moments) generally ok with the Abrams films, but I admit they are trying to have it both ways, and should really have the guts to do their own thing.
So I’m not the only one who keeps seeing these call backs to Star Trek: The Motion Picture?
No indeed, sir! When Pike told Kirk, “They gave her back to me,” I gave a little squeak of nerd joy.
In fact, come to think of it, even Abrams’ Klingons look more like TMP Klingons than the ones we see in STIII-VI and TNG – more of a central, long cranial ridge than multiple, wide ones.
I have been thinking about Trek FAR too much recently, I guess…!
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