Star Trek: The Beginning SCRIPT online!

[F. King Daniel]

Remember the unproduced Romulan War movie, Star Trek: The Beggining? Written by Erik Jendresen in 2006, the project was cancelled in favour of the JJ Abrams reboot.

I just found the entire script online.

Enterprise NX-01 misses the Romulan attack because they're at Risa. It seems to have been written with existing ENT sets and props in mind, like the NX-alpha control centre.

I definitely think we were better off with the reboot we got instead, but it's a fascinating look at what might have been.

 

[Deks]

Remember the unproduced Romulan War movie, Star Trek: The Beggining? Written by Erik Jendresen in 2006, the project was cancelled in favour of the JJ Abrams reboot.

I just found the entire script online.

Enterprise NX-01 misses the Romulan attack because they're at Risa. It seems to have been written with existing ENT sets and props in mind, like the NX-alpha control centre.

I definitely think we were better off with the reboot we got instead, but it's a fascinating look at what might have been.

Had ST:Enterprise stayed on air for 7 seasons, we would have seen the Earth/Romulan War play out.

Season 4 already foreshadowed this... it ended in early 2155 (that is before the 6 year jump with the last episode).

UFP was founded in 2161... that's only 6 years after Season 4.
So, starting with Season 5, the series could have jumped ahead to 2156 (the beginning of the war).

The war lasted until 2160.
Season 5 to late season 7 could have easily showed us the majoirty of the war (there would had to have been a few skips to show us everything in 3 years as opposed to 4)... and the last few episodes (for example last 4 episodes) could have showed us the founding of United Federation of Planets in 2161.

 

[F. King Daniel]

For what it's worth, this movie has the Romulan war begin in 2159, thus making it shorter than the conjectured 4 year span from the old Star Trek Chronology. It reuses a lot of ENT concepts too, like the Romulan drone ships from season 4.

 

[BillJ]

I thought Eric Jendersen said they never made it to the script stage?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought Eric Jendersen said they never made it to the script stage?

Nah, he said it got to a first draft and a lot would have changed. This first draft even uses technical info straight from The Starfleet Museum fan site about the Comet-class and Daedalus-class that almost certainly would have been changed.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Remember the unproduced Romulan War movie, Star Trek: The Beggining? Written by Erik Jendresen in 2006, the project was cancelled in favour of the JJ Abrams reboot.

I just found the entire script online.

Enterprise NX-01 misses the Romulan attack because they're at Risa. It seems to have been written with existing ENT sets and props in mind, like the NX-alpha control centre.

I definitely think we were better off with the reboot we got instead, but it's a fascinating look at what might have been.

That's great! Now if only the treatment for Star Trek Federation would finally show up online!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Truth is, someone sent me the STTB script a year ago as a Christmas pressie (whoever you are, thank you! It's one of my favourite unexpected pressies ever) but I didn't want to get in any trouble for sharing it around. But now someone else has uploaded it, it's fair game IMHO.

I can see why they didn't go with The Beginning, starring unknowns and set in the era of Enterprise, Trek's first cancelled show since TOS (which I assume is why the NX-01 crew were written out in such an unceremonius manner, to try and distance it). Imagine if it had been a total flop and ended on that cliffhanger...

Also Erik needs to learn more about how planets and moons work, since the Romulans sending their fleet on a trajectory to Earth that hides them behind the moon is... umm... not very sound.

That's great! Now if only the treatment for Star Trek Federation would finally show up online!

The one I REALLY want to read is Star Trek: The Academy Years, the 1991 sorta-reboot that never was.

 

[valkyrie013]

so just read it, not bad for a first pass, as mentioned, the coming in from the moon was.. stupid.. especially if they had cloaking devices. Could have warped in to the ort cloud or something, then cloaked and went in on impulse, which seems to be there achilies heal, drop to fire, and only use when at impulse. Rather them not use it at all, but hey.

Could have instead of 2259, maybe make it earlier, but have the war already started, or a bit of cold war since 2256, them raiding colony's or frontier worlds, space is BIG with like 50 light years between us and Romulus.. with the Enterprise out there fighting instead of shooting the breeze at Risa. With the 2259 class being geared up for war. Didn't like the "Were here for the Vulcans" bit. In Enterprise they weren't after the Vulcans, they were destabilizing the whole quadrant.

Rest was okay, needs some polishing. I'd watch it

 

[FederationHistorian]

My thoughts, and some edits to the STTB script:

• Seems like a soft reboot of the ENT era, which is okay by me; it shows a different side to the story of what it is like to actually live on 22nd United Earth, and sets a different tone to the ENT narrative. Seems like the whole “holographic rock bands” idea would be a more effective and better use here than on ENT.

• Not to be that guy, but ENT era used S/COMS, not LCARS. Unless the script is trying to say that LCARS has been around for 200 years at the highest levels of Starfleet Command and was only made available to the public for use in the mid-24th century.

• The drones would have been 5 years and not 6 years ago in universe…

• Acknowledges Enterprise…and then cuts to main character when it should be cutting to the crew on Risa. Even if the ENT cameos amounts to a brief comedy spot in the movie.

• Romulan ships…are not…supposed… to cloak (read: use invisibility shields)…during this era. Cloaked mines and holographic emitters for Romulan ships is another matter. As is masking their warp signatures/capabilities and not appearing on enemy sensors in spite of the lack of cloaking tech. Neither of these ideas conflict with canon, unlike the cloaked ships.

• Presumably, the BoPs are also AI controlled in this script, since anything else violate the whole ‘neither side visually saw the other’ when a vessel crashes on Earth.

• Targets on Earth feels too Western centric. It should be expanded to include other world cities. Maybe Tokyo or Mumbai or Seoul or Sydney or Lagos or a futuristic Kabul could have been added. It is called the Earth-Romulan War. Not the Western World-Romulan War or the American-Romulan War. The story was doing a good job at showing how it was a global effort up to this point.

• Did Earth build a new Los Angeles? Considering that it was supposed to have fallen into the ocean 100 years earlier.

• Needs more spatial torpedoes.

• The NX-Omega crew basically has to either die through self sacrifice, become Section 31 agents upon return, or become marooned and never make it back home by the end due to how its written.

• The Romulans feel like 1 dimensional Saturday morning cartoon villains. They are nothing like Nero, Tomalak, Sela, the TOS Romulans or any other Romulan that ever been on screen before. At the very least, I think giving all of the Romulan captain’s lines in the third act to the Praetor would help a bit. It would reveal that a simultaneously greedy and self preserving individual that was in charge of the Romulan Star Empire at this time and how much of the behaviour of the Romulan admirals and centurions in this conflict came from the top down.

This script could very easily be Star Trek’s version of Rogue One, and could launch film careers like ST’09 did. But it needs a better ending besides a cliffhanger, considering that the characters are all unknowns, and no studio is going to risk a new Star trek trilogy with characters that no one knows until such an idea is proven to be successful. It would be a stand-alone film. And the lack of exposition to explain that the war has been going on for 3 years at that point does not help the film, since that exposition is for the benefits of casual viewers. It would only take a few lines to say the Romulan attacked Starbase One and then a bunch of Earth colonies, NX ships were busy escorting convoys to prevent further ambushes, and Enterprise herself was retaining its diplomatic and exploratory mission on Starfleet orders.

Otherwise, I would watch this, and would be interested to see what its like on the big screen.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Truth is, someone sent me the STTB script a year ago as a Christmas pressie (whoever you are, thank you! It's one of my favourite unexpected pressies ever) but I didn't want to get in any trouble for sharing it around. But now someone else has uploaded it, it's fair game IMHO.

I can see why they didn't go with The Beginning, starring unknowns and set in the era of Enterprise, Trek's first cancelled show since TOS (which I assume is why the NX-01 crew were written out in such an unceremonius manner, to try and distance it). Imagine if it had been a total flop and ended on that cliffhanger...

Also Erik needs to learn more about how planets and moons work, since the Romulans sending their fleet on a trajectory to Earth that hides them behind the moon is... umm... not very sound.


The one I REALLY want to read is Star Trek: The Academy Years, the 1991 sorta-reboot that never was.

Yep, that's another fascinating pitch. Hope all of them will eventually be released for all of us to read.

 

[valkyrie013]

It felt alot like the movie Pearl Harbor.. Few crack pilots, flying up to head off the Japanese.. Err romulan..
Doolittle raid,
Girl pining for the lead character with nothing to do. If your going to introduce somebody.. Don't just make them window dressing
Very 90s early 2000s style script.. Not that it's bad just Michael Bay ish.

 

[FederationHistorian]

It felt alot like the movie Pearl Harbor.. Few crack pilots, flying up to head off the Japanese.. Err romulan..
Doolittle raid,
Girl pining for the lead character with nothing to do. If your going to introduce somebody.. Don't just make them window dressing
Very 90s early 2000s style script.. Not that it's bad just Michael Bay ish.

The idea was for it to be based on WW2 films. And WW2 themes have featured heavily in Trek before, so this film would be a continuation of that.

But this script should really be a one and done film like Armageddon instead trying to be a series like Transformers. I supposed it could have led to a sequel based around the Battle of Cheron, and been respectful in keeping the general conflict mysterious. But it also means Section 31 needs to become a part of the story at some point to keep focused on the Romulans as antagonists after that battle, since both the Neutral Zone and the Federation will both be established afterwards, And would turn the series into something like Jason Bourne, but in space.

 

[somebuddyX]

I opened it up and hot damn they even did one of these Paramount logo references, like the Indiana Jones films, so I'm looking forward to the rest. The PDF opens up in Ivona Reader, so I'm probably just going to turn it into audio and listen to it in the car.

 

[Tuskin38]

So,

According to people from the show, the war wasn’t going to start in season 5, but there would be hints and build up to it. Maybe the season finale could have been a cliffhanger on the start

 

[Deks]

According to people from the show, the war wasn’t going to start in season 5, but there would be hints and build up to it. Maybe the season finale could have been a cliffhanger on the start

Well, my point was that if the show WAS going to cover the Earth/Romulan War... they could have skipped ahead a year to when the war due to begin and kick off Season 5 with that (or mid season).
The next 2 and a half seasons could have showed us the war etc. then leave a 4 episodes at the end to jump forth a bit more and show us founding of UFP.

Otherwise, yeah, we would have seen more back and forth covert operations between Earth and Romulus probably in S5 with the end of it culminating in the war itself.

 

[Tuskin38]

They're talking about breaking the Warp 5 barrier, when that already happened.

But, it is a first draft, that probably would have been corrected with later revisions to warp 6 or 7.

 

[Ketrick]

It's flawed, but has plenty of potential. The script needs a few more drafts. I would love for this to be revived as a mini series or limited series on Paramount +. Enterprise and Colombia need to be more of a part of the war and the Romulans going after the Vulcans on Earth doesn't work for me. However, I believe that with some polishing this diamond in the rough can shine brightly.

 

[Saul]

I like the script. The main problems I have with it are mainly continuity issues such as Romulans having cloaks and explaining that the Romulans are offshoots of Vulcans. Things that are a big surprise 100 years later in TOS.

I wonder how they would continue it as a trilogy. There was mentions in interviews that the movie after would be more of an exploration movie and a new enemy would be involved. It would be interesting to know more about how they were going to tie it all up and conclude the Romulan war.

They're talking about breaking the Warp 5 barrier, when that already happened.

Nope, they mention warp 8.

 

[Sci]

I haven't had time to read the whole script, but I have one basic question: This whole bit where United Earth decides to defend its Vulcan population rather than sacrifice them to the Romulans doesn't quite ring true to me, because Earth is supposed to be a rising power and recent Vulcan client state, whereas Vulcan is supposed to be the regional hegemon. Why isn't Vulcan sending a fleet of ships to Earth to defend their citizens and supplement the United Earth fleet?

Also, pedantic side-note, but given that "Demons/Terra Prime" established that a United Earth government official in charge of foreign policy received the title of "Minister," it seems most likely to me that United Earth is a parliamentary republic. So the leader of who decides they'll stand against the Romulans should be the Prime Minister of United Earth, not the President of United Earth.

 

[valkyrie013]

Few more things.
The warp 8 test ship. Had Plenty of examples of an escape pod launching at warp and surviving. So the ship should have had an escape system. Stupid engineering if no escape system on an experimental ship. Hell it shouldn't be manned at all..
So him poping out and hitting the escape system or escaping prior to explosion would be more realistic.
Also, after probably years of a romulan cold war/lead up. That there were No ships for an earth defense fleet. No new Nxs intrepid types etc. Just almost useless fighters.
Don't have a problem with the daedalus class it is the first warp 7 ship so there being a better tech exchange going on between the colalitition especially with a possible romulan conflict on the horizon.