Missed opportunities in the (TOS) movies?

[Commander Kielbasa]

What do you feel are some missed opportunities in the TOS movies?

Myself:

-Seeing more 'exotic' aliens. With the enhanced technology I would've liked to have seen more exotic aliens, like Arex. Almost Star Wars-y.

-More ships

-Space gangsters.

 

[Vger23]

What do you feel are some missed opportunities in the TOS movies?

Myself:

-Seeing more 'exotic' aliens. With the enhanced technology I would've liked to have seen more exotic aliens, like Arex. Almost Star Wars-y.

-More ships

-Space gangsters.

DEFINITELY space gangsters.

 

[Green]

Space gangsters?

Just letting the crew evolve from the series crew to younger characters that could keep the series going.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Just letting the crew evolve from the series crew to younger characters that could keep the series going.

Yep. They should have "retired" most of the characters over the course of the films. Saavik was a step in the right direction. David, not so much.

 

[DeepSpaceYorks]

Definitely not following on from the brilliant start of TMP. Meyer's reboot of the film series from TWOK has really started to annoy me recently.

 

[Galileo7]

SFS, killing Kirk's son David. I think it might have been interesting character development, father & son, seeing David with Kirk, McCoy and Spock in the rest of TOS films.

TVH, not having 1701-A be an Excelsior class or another new design for Kirk to command for the rest of TOS films.

 

[Warped9]

Definitely not following on from the brilliant start of TMP. Meyer's reboot of the film series from TWOK has really started to annoy me recently.

I have felt this way for quite some time. I would like to have seen at least one more followip film in the TMP style of Trek. Despite its visual departures from TOS it felt like an extension of the TOS universe.

I've generally never liked the look of the Trek films from TWOK onward.

 

[Galileo7]

I have felt this way for quite some time. I would like to have seen at least one more followip film in the TMP style of Trek. Despite its visual departures from TOS it felt like an extension of the TOS universe.

I've generally never liked the look of the Trek films from TWOK onward.

Agree. I wanted another TMP based film between TMP and the radical changes of WOK. Maybe, a second five year mission film right after the events of TMP. I personally think that there should have been a trilogy based on TMP, so two films after TMP depicting events of a second five year mission. A TMP trilogy followed by the actual WOK/SFS/TVH trilogy.

 

[Space Coast]

There was a missed opportunity to make a fifth movie instead of skipping from 4 to 6.

 

[Smellmet]

I always wanted to see more of the D7 battlecruisers in action. Damn I love that ship design.

 

[DonIago]

While I certainly never wanted a TOS movie to be all about the explosions, I really would have liked to have seen at least a couple of more decent combat sequences in later films.

I regard TFF as a missed opportunity to make a good film after TVH.

While I'll give props to Meyer for somehow turning the scaled-back budget of TWOK into an asset, I wish we could have seen another TOS film with the budget to do things on the level of TMP without the issues that burdened that film.

I'm of two minds on killing David: from a storytelling standpoint I laud the fact that resurrecting Spock meant Kirk had to sacrifice everything else in the process, but, and I suppose this is the entire point...I wish we had a way to know what might have happened had David lived.

Not getting Kirstie to stay on as Saavik was, IMO, a serious missed opportunity.

I kind of wish Terrell had lived and managed to have some sort of recurring role in the succeeding films.

 

[Smellmet]

While I certainly never wanted a TOS movie to be all about the explosions, I really would have liked to have seen at least a couple of more decent combat sequences in later films.

I regard TFF as a missed opportunity to make a good film after TVH.

While I'll give props to Meyer for somehow turning the scaled-back budget of TWOK into an asset, I wish we could have seen another TOS film with the budget to do things on the level of TMP without the issues that burdened that film..

Totally agree with this. As much as I love the TOS films, they never quite itched that scratch I wanted with a bit of ship to ship action.

 

[Galileo7]

I always wanted to see more of the D7 battlecruisers in action. Damn I love that ship design.

Agree. I wanted a film with the Klingon K'T'inga(s) battling the 1701-Refit. Not just the simulator battle in WOK or the limited interaction seen in TUC. I wished that Khan had captured a K'T'inga to attack Kirk in WOK.

 

[Vger23]

Love Klingon Battlecruisers, but I think Khan would have found it a lot harder to ambush the Enterprise if his ride was a K't'inga and not the Reliant.

Agree. I wanted a film with the Klingon K'T'inga(s) battling the 1701-Refit. Not just the simulator battle in WOK or the limited interaction seen in TUC. I wished that Khan had captured a K'T'inga to attack Kirk in WOK.

 

[Smellmet]

Love Klingon Battlecruisers, but I think Khan would have found it a lot harder to ambush the Enterprise if his ride was a K't'inga and not the Reliant.

Yes it would have required an extensive rewrite of the scene, and deprived me of one of my favourite sequences in all of trek.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Not expanding the cast and giving us the originally-planned "Next Generation" led by David Marcus and Saavik.

 

[Vger23]

I actually really like the TOS movies just the way they were. I think there are meaningful arcs and closures for a number of those characters, and it truly felt like the universe and the characters changed and moved forward with each installment.

I think this was something that the TNG movies were somewhat missing.

 

[Smellmet]

I actually really like the TOS movies just the way they were. I think there are meaningful arcs and closures for a number of those characters, and it truly felt like the universe and the characters changed and moved forward with each installment.

I think this was something that the TNG movies were somewhat missing.

Absolutely. TNG had 7 series' worth of world building to do, TOS did not, that's the difference.

 

[Pauln6]

A second 5-year mission from the TMP era would have been awesome, even if only in animated form.

The biggest missed opportunities were not developing Saavik more, particularly her Romulan heritage.

I would also have liked to see the original crew branch out more so we got more stand out scenes beyond repeating the Captain's instructions like Chekov in STII, Uhura in STIII, Chapel in STIV, and Sulu in STVI. It would have been nice if they had worked harder to bring Chapel back into the fold as Starfleet Command personnel too.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Ooooh, what's my old laundry list?

I definitely wanted to go back to the cinema a few weeks after ST:TMP to see the next new story. As I began to learn about "Phase II", and bought and read some scripts that featured Decker, Ilia and Xon, I missed those characters so much. Similarly, the loss of Kirstie Alley's Saavik - who turned out so much better than the pointy-eared Mary Sue character the newszines were panicking about, stymied plans for younger characters to start replacing the older characters as the focus of storylines.

Chapel and Rand are in the novelization of ST II. I know Majel Barrett withheld her services for ST II, but poor Grace Lee Whitney wasn't even contacted about reprising Rand. And they did use the transporter in ST II. (Grace actually attending a screening of ST II in Brisbane, Australia, because she still hadn't seen it in the US, not having been invited to ST II's gala premiere.)

I missed the TMP uniforms a lot. I was shocked during the "It's a Wrap!" Paramount auctions how many unused costumes had been made for the Epsilon 9 scenes! Roddenberry could have done a space-station based TV series in the early 80s with all the space station uniforms - and the amazing ambassadorial alien robes - that were made for TMP and hardly glimpsed onscreen.

I recall a "Best of Trek" article that suggested a great future villain might have been a rogue Andorian. I did get fixated on that idea! I imagined John Phillip Law (the blind angel, Pygar, in "Barbarella"), in blue makeup and moving antennae, as a charismatic Andorian, either good or evil, I wouldn't have cared. (I guess I was anticipating Shran in "Enterprise" decades too early! I still can't believe how lucky we Andorian fans were with that series! Originally, the plot of "The Andorian Incident" had been written with Gorn in mind!)

We definitely could have revisited the TMP alien races in future movies and TNG. More than just a few re-appropriations of the TMP costumes that we only glimpsed in ST IV and VI. And yeah, Arex and M'Ress as regulars. And more Kyle after ST II! (What a delight to see his return!)