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levite · 11-15-2008, 08:32 PM

I saw the trailer Friday, when I went to see the new Bond flick with my boyz: it looks...interesting. It definitely doesn't look like any other Star Trek film.

I'll go see it. On the one hand, I can't rule out it being cool. On the other, while the trailer was interesting, it also kind of looked like the world's most expensive fan film....

I think trying to reboot the Trek franchise by re-casting the original series cast is fundamentally a bad idea. I think the Trek universe is has become too complex and interwoven to support this kind of reboot.

I think it would have been much smarter to try something more akin to the franchise re-start they did when they first invented Next Generation. But rather than another TV series-- hopefully they'd have learned their lesson about prequels, but even if they just did "Star Trek: The Generation After That One"-- do a starter movie, to catch people's interest.

My idea: all new characters, new ship, same Trek universe, but set like 200 or 300 years after the Next Gen serieses. You could completely re-set the balances of power, who the major power players are in the Galaxy, what enemies have come and gone and are still a threat, and you could do amazing projections of where the Trek technology might have gone, given a couple centuries of furious advancement.... You could even darken it up a little, like they did for the last few seasons of DS9. Do a movie or two like this, and if it takes a following, spin off a series.

But this notion that you can just reboot the old Kirk-Spock-McCoy franchise with new actors.... I don't think this will work. Trek is not literature, where characters are originally just words, waiting for someone, anyone, to give them life and form. Trek began in visual form, and those characters are too firmly bonded to the images of the original actors. The characters are too deeply built on the devices of the actors. No character bio called for the Vulcan split-finger salute or the Vulcan neck pinch: Nimoy invented them. Likewise, everyone knows Kirk is emotional and tends to over-enunciate when stressed: that comes only from Shatner being an overactor, and tending to over-enunciate when stressed.

This is just not a good idea.

11-15-2008, 08:32 PM	#64 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I saw the trailer Friday, when I went to see the new Bond flick with my boyz: it looks...interesting. It definitely doesn't look like any other Star Trek film. I'll go see it. On the one hand, I can't rule out it being cool. On the other, while the trailer was interesting, it also kind of looked like the world's most expensive fan film.... I think trying to reboot the Trek franchise by re-casting the original series cast is fundamentally a bad idea. I think the Trek universe is has become too complex and interwoven to support this kind of reboot. I think it would have been much smarter to try something more akin to the franchise re-start they did when they first invented Next Generation. But rather than another TV series-- hopefully they'd have learned their lesson about prequels, but even if they just did "Star Trek: The Generation After That One"-- do a starter movie, to catch people's interest. My idea: all new characters, new ship, same Trek universe, but set like 200 or 300 years after the Next Gen serieses. You could completely re-set the balances of power, who the major power players are in the Galaxy, what enemies have come and gone and are still a threat, and you could do amazing projections of where the Trek technology might have gone, given a couple centuries of furious advancement.... You could even darken it up a little, like they did for the last few seasons of DS9. Do a movie or two like this, and if it takes a following, spin off a series. But this notion that you can just reboot the old Kirk-Spock-McCoy franchise with new actors.... I don't think this will work. Trek is not literature, where characters are originally just words, waiting for someone, anyone, to give them life and form. Trek began in visual form, and those characters are too firmly bonded to the images of the original actors. The characters are too deeply built on the devices of the actors. No character bio called for the Vulcan split-finger salute or the Vulcan neck pinch: Nimoy invented them. Likewise, everyone knows Kirk is emotional and tends to over-enunciate when stressed: that comes only from Shatner being an overactor, and tending to over-enunciate when stressed. This is just not a good idea. __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)