New Star Trek Series In Trouble

[braces_for_impact]

I enjoyed all the Trek series to some degree, Probably in the order of STNG -->STOS--->DS9--->Voyager--->Enterprise. Personally, I think the reboots were fun, but I would enjoy the original universe being on TV again. Although I would hope for a cool new series, I had a lot of doubts about this new one. The ship was butt-ugly. The time period was stupid. Enough of the pre-kirk days!

 

[DolphinDynasty]

True, true they did. I still thought, as a kid, it would've made sense for a future society to have more of a grasp on utility, and it was a bit sad to see nobody seemed to do anything in art in the twenty first century and beyond, cuz they only ever listened to music from baroque to classical, jazz, and watched crewmembers in the holodeck re-create Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and the like.

It makes me wonder, even though a scientist by profession, if there are a lot of us who think we will have no more art-forms or new pathways for storytelling? Bt then again, I just watched a doco on a Japanese artist who delved into Temporary Art, which he does with rapid, close-cropped and well timed fireworks that carry a sort of paint that upon explosion make enough color he can create abstract style formations in the air, and then it dissipates after a few seconds.

The problem with portraying art in Sci-Fi is that it exponentially increases the degree of difficulty. The production itself is an artistic endeavor, so nesting further artistic novelty, whether in the form of sculpture, painting, music, fashion, theatre, or even worse some completely new form, is hugely difficult, and fraught with danger. In a few years, people will watch the show and wonder why the art/fashion/style in the 25th century is so two years ago. So the tendency is to be bland, in the hope that things won't seem dated, rather than futuristic, in a year or two.

A production has a better chance of not looking ancient if its styles are bland. Of course, the technology can't be bland - futuristic tech lies at the core of Sci-Fi - and as a result, it dates very badly. The flip-out communicators in TOS were incredibly advanced to 1960s audiences; But today they are ludicrously clunky and feature poor. Even those technologies that remain 'futuristic' (phasers, transporters) are portrayed using special effects that leave modern audiences more amused than impressed.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars appear to have made deliberate decisions to go bland, on the understanding that today's futuristic is tomorrow's old-hat. Shows that didn't make that choice tend to look more like comedy than drama to modern audiences - I am thinking about Space 1999, which is so '70s it's almost painful, but it is far from the only offender. Only in the case of Dr Who is the changing of fashion almost a feature, rather than a bug, (particularly for nostalgic viewers of repeats). The idea of 'regeneration', allowing not only the lead actor, but also his style, to change over time was inspired - But the success of Dr Who means that other shows cannot use this trick, for fear of being branded derivative.

Creating art is hard; Creating art that appears futuristic is harder; Creating art that will continue to appear futuristic in the future is basically impossible. So we can't be too hard on Sci-Fi productions that try to avoid the issue as far as possible.

I can see all that yeah. I watched some kinda film doco once that said that the automated doors in TOS were originally pulled by ropes and mechanisms behind the stage-set, and that in developing the mechanisms for the doors somebody else improved the design to create modern automated elevator doors. I wonder though if that's true since I could only find data on when the first automated doors for elevators were invented, not what the inspiration for it was.

After the Matrix film I recall seeing new phone type that mimicked the phones used in the first film, and two years after that I think they started buzzing about Apple's newest roll-out. We once had a hand-held computer with fax, and phone link-up and I'm not talking about Apple's smartphones but something similar made by IBM that died quick. There was also a type of computer you could wear well before the new Smart Watch, but as it involved shoes, a visor and a connection to the main device in a belt pack, like a fanny pack I suppose the popular appeal wasn't there even if the similar idea was well ahead of what we've got now.

There's always the constant trouble from anti-science folk who whine about it not having enough uses or what good is it if all we did was discover something new or solve a math issue that was long held as not solveable. I once read about the inventor to the type of coolant and rods that are now in everybody's fridges and freezers who worked on it during an excursion to the North Pole just around the beginning of the 1920s. He was a science tutor by trade and apparently told all his students that hi invention as he had not seen a positive use for it was worthless, and that none of them should pursue scientific study. One of his students did and adapted the invention for use.

When people ask me if I never hope because I do not have faith or believe in a god, I tell them about some of what we discovered and invented because we simply asked enough of the right questions, so my hope relies on those questions and never stopping them.

Now I want to watch a Star Trek series, but there are sooooo many I'm not even sure which one. Also Earth 2, the old sci-fi series, was quite promising until they killed it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Voyager was the only series I quit watching. It just got stupid, and they only had maybe 3 characters they knew what to do with. Everyone else became part of the background. Enterprise was ok, hated what they did with the final episode.

Best thing I saw for Trek in a long time was that fan made Prelude to Axanar, but then CBS had to bring a lawsuit to try and stop it. The case is finally settled, they will make their film, but with restrictions so it won't be as good as it could have been.

The script has to be overseen by JJ Abrams?!

Think we need Star Trek right now, to give hope and inspire people as to what we could do.

A Ferengi series and every episode mocks Trump. Although the Ferengi homeworld probably went to hell after they switched to a Swedish Socialist society too quickly. Though illegal arms sales probably plummeted in the alpha quadrant.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Looks like the info provided in the OP is out of date.

http://nerdist.com/jason-isaacs-cast-as-captain-on-star-trek-discovery/

 

[DrZoidberg]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/news/a24814/star-trek-discovery-delayed/

Bad news, aspiring Starfleet captains: "Star Trek: Discovery," the first new Trek TV series since "Enterprise" went off the air more than a decade ago, has been delayed. We have no new date for when it might finally engage.

But is it sad? Hasn't JJ Abrahms ass-raped this franchise to death already? And it was already coughing up blood before he came to the party. The Enterprise series was pretty weak.

My hope lies more in independent fans making fanfic Star Trek. The Finish "the Pirkening" was hilarious. Now when CGI is just getting cheaper and cheaper we'll see more of it. I've given up on the franchise owners doing anything but keep pissing on it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Both Star Trek and Star Wars appear to have made deliberate decisions to go bland, on the understanding that today's futuristic is tomorrow's old-hat.

Star Trek was originally intended as atheist and liberal propaganda. Philosophy light morality plays to show Christians that it's possible to be moral without God. That well is dry now. We don't have to dance around with metaphor to argue atheism. In today's media environment a sci-fi show with an atheist slant is a dime a dozen. Good luck finding a sci-fi show today that doesn't endlessly bang on about women being strong or that minorities are also real people.

For Star Trek to stay interesting and survive it will has to evolve. The two paths I see is either getting even nerdier, hard science stuff. Or mass market appeal and turn it into an action series. They've clearly chosen the later path. But that takes away everything that makes Star Trek interesting.

Star Wars was intended to be bland and mass-market. Everything that was dark and gritty about Star Wars was stuff he had to put in because the people with the money demanded it. When George Lucas got creative full control it became terrible. The most boring vacuous bullshit imaginable IMHO. Star Wars is nothing but a collage of 50'ies - 70'ies sci-fi book covers. Which is fine. That's what I love about it. But the development of the franchise hasn't destroyed anything. There wasn't much to destroy. As long as they retained good set designers they'll be golden. The shoddy level of CGI effects really didn't help the prequels.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/news/a24814/star-trek-discovery-delayed/

But is it sad? Hasn't JJ Abrahms ass-raped this franchise to death already?

I wouldn't say he did that. JJ Abrams greatly expanded the appeal of Star Trek. My wife doesn't want to watch Star Trek II - The Wrath of Oscar Meyer. But she's seen the last three since the reboot. Unfortunately, in expanding the appeal, JJ Abrams pretty much took the fantasy and sci-fi out of Star Trek and replaced it with Star Wars. Why? Because Star Wars sells so much better.

It is sad, but those be the brakes. I suppose the next film will be about saving whales in the 1980s.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I'd love a show to explore the Star Trek universe in a completely different direction from the 'lone ship of highly moral people on the edge of civilization.'

Something like Sgt. Bilko or Blackadder, a cunning individual who appreciates the ideals of the Federation without, quite, fully embracing them. Trying to walk that fine line between the Prime Directive and the search for the planet with a population of ever-horny women that are sexually compatible with human males.

Or maybe something like the planet Io, where the Gangsters run the place due to human contamination. A long term comedy of a sneaky schmuck trying to con them into line with galactic civilization, working for (and in spite of) a chisel-chinned Starfleet Recruiting Poster who just doesn't understand why people would want to play cops robbers and robbers when they could be studying warp field physics.

Or a rather thinly disguised MASH rip-off, a Starfleet medical unit attached to a Klingon exploratory command, trying to convince them that 'kill/smash/eat' is not always the best response to threats, mysteries, first contact situations, slow moving comets, and beings claiming to be omnipotent gods of one or another planet.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But is it sad? Hasn't JJ Abrahms ass-raped this franchise to death already?

I wouldn't say he did that. JJ Abrams greatly expanded the appeal of Star Trek. My wife doesn't want to watch Star Trek II - The Wrath of Oscar Meyer. But she's seen the last three since the reboot. Unfortunately, in expanding the appeal, JJ Abrams pretty much took the fantasy and sci-fi out of Star Trek and replaced it with Star Wars. Why? Because Star Wars sells so much better.

It is sad, but those be the brakes. I suppose the next film will be about saving whales in the 1980s.

But all that means is that JJ Abrahms as ass-raped Star Trek to death, and now it's something completely different. Which is nice for your wife. But it's not like you are now enjoying Star Trek together. You're just enjoying a light entertainment brain-dead action movie, like everything else Hollywood churns out, with your wife. Wouldn't it be better if your wife kept not liking Star Trek and we kept getting high quality Star Trek instead?

 

[DrZoidberg]

I'd love a show to explore the Star Trek universe in a completely different direction from the 'lone ship of highly moral people on the edge of civilization.'

Something like Sgt. Bilko or Blackadder, a cunning individual who appreciates the ideals of the Federation without, quite, fully embracing them. Trying to walk that fine line between the Prime Directive and the search for the planet with a population of ever-horny women that are sexually compatible with human males.

Or maybe something like the planet Io, where the Gangsters run the place due to human contamination. A long term comedy of a sneaky schmuck trying to con them into line with galactic civilization, working for (and in spite of) a chisel-chinned Starfleet Recruiting Poster who just doesn't understand why people would want to play cops robbers and robbers when they could be studying warp field physics.

Or a rather thinly disguised MASH rip-off, a Starfleet medical unit attached to a Klingon exploratory command, trying to convince them that 'kill/smash/eat' is not always the best response to threats, mysteries, first contact situations, slow moving comets, and beings claiming to be omnipotent gods of one or another planet.

But the whole point with Star Trek is that we've evolved into a higher plane of existence, away from petty squabbles. Every alien race in Star Trek is just an encapsulation of a contemporary human trait that they explore in that episode. And by exaggerating it in the race they make it more apparent. "Ferengi" is the Pashtun word for "westerner". Roddenderry created the Ferengi to be mirrors of humanity today. The point of introducing them is so we can point and laugh at them. But really we're pointing and laughing at ourselves.

This is subtle liberal critique at it's best. With a morally defective human at the center of a Star Trek series, won't we kill the magic?

 

[Keith&Co.]

This is subtle liberal critique at it's best. With a morally defective human at the center of a Star Trek series, won't we kill the magic?

We're still defective humans.
The MOST Kirk could ever promise was that we weren't going to kill...today.
One of the Trek episodes concerned a crewman's blind prejudice against Romulans, and once he saw the pointed ears, against Spock, too.

Sisco and Picard both ended up arrested for crimes they hadn't committed because of either the stupidity or ambitions of another person.

A central theme of Voyager was the effort to create a situation where there could be moral friction between crewmembers, though Fleet and the Maquis had to depend on each other to survive.

As you say, Trek uses the aliens to examine our moral depths. Morally imperfect beings gives us more opportunity to actually examine those morals. A show where everyone was an iteration of Data would be boring as shit, and very hard to relate to.

 

[JCS60]

I'd love a show to explore the Star Trek universe in a completely different direction from the 'lone ship of highly moral people on the edge of civilization.'

Something like Sgt. Bilko or Blackadder, a cunning individual who appreciates the ideals of the Federation without, quite, fully embracing them. Trying to walk that fine line between the Prime Directive and the search for the planet with a population of ever-horny women that are sexually compatible with human males.

Or maybe something like the planet Io, where the Gangsters run the place due to human contamination. A long term comedy of a sneaky schmuck trying to con them into line with galactic civilization, working for (and in spite of) a chisel-chinned Starfleet Recruiting Poster who just doesn't understand why people would want to play cops robbers and robbers when they could be studying warp field physics.

Or a rather thinly disguised MASH rip-off, a Starfleet medical unit attached to a Klingon exploratory command, trying to convince them that 'kill/smash/eat' is not always the best response to threats, mysteries, first contact situations, slow moving comets, and beings claiming to be omnipotent gods of one or another planet.

But the whole point with Star Trek is that we've evolved into a higher plane of existence, away from petty squabbles. Every alien race in Star Trek is just an encapsulation of a contemporary human trait that they explore in that episode. And by exaggerating it in the race they make it more apparent. "Ferengi" is the Pashtun word for "westerner". Roddenderry created the Ferengi to be mirrors of humanity today. The point of introducing them is so we can point and laugh at them. But really we're pointing and laughing at ourselves.

This is subtle liberal critique at it's best. With a morally defective human at the center of a Star Trek series, won't we kill the magic?

The Trek is just 50's and early 60's westerns on a different frontier with beam weapons vs projectile weapons. If you're older and grew up watching tv during this time period you recognize the scripts right away the costumes, makeup and props are all that's changed. Humans have no history of deep space exploration or alien contact from which to draw from so all we get is reruns of what we do know the human experience.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I wouldn't say he did that. JJ Abrams greatly expanded the appeal of Star Trek. My wife doesn't want to watch Star Trek II - The Wrath of Oscar Meyer. But she's seen the last three since the reboot. Unfortunately, in expanding the appeal, JJ Abrams pretty much took the fantasy and sci-fi out of Star Trek and replaced it with Star Wars. Why? Because Star Wars sells so much better.

It is sad, but those be the brakes. I suppose the next film will be about saving whales in the 1980s.

But all that means is that JJ Abrahms as ass-raped Star Trek to death, and now it's something completely different. Which is nice for your wife. But it's not like you are now enjoying Star Trek together. You're just enjoying a light entertainment brain-dead action movie, like everything else Hollywood churns out, with your wife.

Who said I was enjoying it? The first one was good for a reboot. The second one was a bit upsetting in that it was a remake. That last one was pretty bad (for an action movie), closer to ass rape. Wait... why are we comparing this to sodomy?

Wouldn't it be better if your wife kept not liking Star Trek and we kept getting high quality Star Trek instead?

I didn't say it was a good thing, just that JJ Abrams took something and made it more accessible at the cost of the franchise meaning anything (other than $$$) anymore.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But the whole point with Star Trek is that we've evolved into a higher plane of existence, away from petty squabbles. Every alien race in Star Trek is just an encapsulation of a contemporary human trait that they explore in that episode. And by exaggerating it in the race they make it more apparent. "Ferengi" is the Pashtun word for "westerner". Roddenderry created the Ferengi to be mirrors of humanity today. The point of introducing them is so we can point and laugh at them. But really we're pointing and laughing at ourselves.

I thought we were laughing at their bad design and weak strength (laser whips?!). The Ferengi get reintroduced in DS9 as a decent set of characters. Quark is probably one of the best characters in the canon.

 

[credoconsolans]

True, true they did. I still thought, as a kid, it would've made sense for a future society to have more of a grasp on utility, and it was a bit sad to see nobody seemed to do anything in art in the twenty first century and beyond, cuz they only ever listened to music from baroque to classical, jazz, and watched crewmembers in the holodeck re-create Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and the like.

It makes me wonder, even though a scientist by profession, if there are a lot of us who think we will have no more art-forms or new pathways for storytelling? Bt then again, I just watched a doco on a Japanese artist who delved into Temporary Art, which he does with rapid, close-cropped and well timed fireworks that carry a sort of paint that upon explosion make enough color he can create abstract style formations in the air, and then it dissipates after a few seconds.

The problem with portraying art in Sci-Fi is that it exponentially increases the degree of difficulty. The production itself is an artistic endeavor, so nesting further artistic novelty, whether in the form of sculpture, painting, music, fashion, theatre, or even worse some completely new form, is hugely difficult, and fraught with danger. In a few years, people will watch the show and wonder why the art/fashion/style in the 25th century is so two years ago. So the tendency is to be bland, in the hope that things won't seem dated, rather than futuristic, in a year or two.

A production has a better chance of not looking ancient if its styles are bland. Of course, the technology can't be bland - futuristic tech lies at the core of Sci-Fi - and as a result, it dates very badly. The flip-out communicators in TOS were incredibly advanced to 1960s audiences; But today they are ludicrously clunky and feature poor. Even those technologies that remain 'futuristic' (phasers, transporters) are portrayed using special effects that leave modern audiences more amused than impressed.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars appear to have made deliberate decisions to go bland, on the understanding that today's futuristic is tomorrow's old-hat. Shows that didn't make that choice tend to look more like comedy than drama to modern audiences - I am thinking about Space 1999, which is so '70s it's almost painful, but it is far from the only offender. Only in the case of Dr Who is the changing of fashion almost a feature, rather than a bug, (particularly for nostalgic viewers of repeats). The idea of 'regeneration', allowing not only the lead actor, but also his style, to change over time was inspired - But the success of Dr Who means that other shows cannot use this trick, for fear of being branded derivative.

Creating art is hard; Creating art that appears futuristic is harder; Creating art that will continue to appear futuristic in the future is basically impossible. So we can't be too hard on Sci-Fi productions that try to avoid the issue as far as possible.

Actually Star Wars Revenge of the Sith showed a future art form. Anakin goes to talk with Palpatine while he's at some sort of opera/play/aquatic Cirque du Soleil. What he's watching is unlikely to become dated in any foreseeable future. So it IS possible for future art forms to be portrayed without them becoming dated:

 

[jab]

Voyager was the only series I quit watching. It just got stupid, and they only had maybe 3 characters they knew what to do with. Everyone else became part of the background. Enterprise was ok, hated what they did with the final episode.

Best thing I saw for Trek in a long time was that fan made Prelude to Axanar, but then CBS had to bring a lawsuit to try and stop it. The case is finally settled, they will make their film, but with restrictions so it won't be as good as it could have been.

Think we need Star Trek right now, to give hope and inspire people as to what we could do.

Of the four main series, Deep Space 9 was the dumbest.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

Voyager was the only series I quit watching. It just got stupid, and they only had maybe 3 characters they knew what to do with. Everyone else became part of the background. Enterprise was ok, hated what they did with the final episode.

Best thing I saw for Trek in a long time was that fan made Prelude to Axanar, but then CBS had to bring a lawsuit to try and stop it. The case is finally settled, they will make their film, but with restrictions so it won't be as good as it could have been.

Think we need Star Trek right now, to give hope and inspire people as to what we could do.

Of the four main series, Deep Space 9 was the dumbest.

I only watched some of DS9 cuz Warf was in it. I liked Warf on or off station or Enterprise, didn't matter. I prolly wouldn't be bored if there were more characters like Data, but it would prolly get a bit confusing as to individual traits in telling personality wise who was who, cuz being robots they'd be missing those traits that we'd find in humans.

At this point, I expect we'd just see more of the flashy CGI or other tech ridden montages to how stupid humans still are in the majority, regardless of who helms it, who writes it, who stars in it or what the quality of the writing is. Pele want dumbed down science, even dumber comedy, and neat endings at the last few moments of every episode so they don't have to worry about missing some of them. Thy want gore and silliness and nonsensical situations for more than decent writing, original reiterations or high quality acting, great original soundtracks, and most production companies will bow to the majority mindset because that's how stuff gets produced.

 

[Jayjay]

But is it sad? Hasn't JJ Abrahms ass-raped this franchise to death already?

I wouldn't say he did that. JJ Abrams greatly expanded the appeal of Star Trek. My wife doesn't want to watch Star Trek II - The Wrath of Oscar Meyer. But she's seen the last three since the reboot. Unfortunately, in expanding the appeal, JJ Abrams pretty much took the fantasy and sci-fi out of Star Trek and replaced it with Star Wars. Why? Because Star Wars sells so much better.

It is sad, but those be the brakes. I suppose the next film will be about saving whales in the 1980s.

I think that even the original Star Trek movies series was not really the way to go. Sure fans rave about Wrath of Khan and Save the Whales or whatever it was, but those aren't really Trek to me. They're just extended special episodes meant to pander to the fans. The real trek is in the episodic television format, morality plays with speculative fiction thrown in.

I think the franchise is dead, unless the new series can revive the feeling of the original series. For next big scifi epic, I think it might be better to start from scratch and do something that is inspired by Roddenberry's vision, rather than trying to forcefully fit into the convuluted existing trek universe that was driven off the cliff a long time ago.

I agree with that some fan creations based on the original show are pretty awesome. But there is a lot of utter crap there too. Axanar, based on the trailer looks pretty dumb to me.

 

[Potoooooooo]

Wait... why are we comparing this to sodomy?

You say that like it is a bad thing

 

[DolphinDynasty]

I wouldn't say he did that. JJ Abrams greatly expanded the appeal of Star Trek. My wife doesn't want to watch Star Trek II - The Wrath of Oscar Meyer. But she's seen the last three since the reboot. Unfortunately, in expanding the appeal, JJ Abrams pretty much took the fantasy and sci-fi out of Star Trek and replaced it with Star Wars. Why? Because Star Wars sells so much better.

It is sad, but those be the brakes. I suppose the next film will be about saving whales in the 1980s.

I think that even the original Star Trek movies series was not really the way to go. Sure fans rave about Wrath of Khan and Save the Whales or whatever it was, but those aren't really Trek to me. They're just extended special episodes meant to pander to the fans. The real trek is in the episodic television format, morality plays with speculative fiction thrown in.

I think the franchise is dead, unless the new series can revive the feeling of the original series. For next big scifi epic, I think it might be better to start from scratch and do something that is inspired by Roddenberry's vision, rather than trying to forcefully fit into the convuluted existing trek universe that was driven off the cliff a long time ago.

I agree with that some fan creations based on the original show are pretty awesome. But there is a lot of utter crap there too. Axanar, based on the trailer looks pretty dumb to me.

But isn't a reboot only based on Roddenberry's work what they kept trying, first with Voyager, then Enterprise, and now this upcoming on. None of it has much of Rodenberry original work, just lot of tie-ins and they all fall flat. When some things die, they just die and it's okay to let it stay dead. We've still got the previous incursions and originals an all the books made from the epic start that Rodenberry began.