RobertScorpio
Pariah
These are all very intriguing ideas, Kub. You could do ships in space, with crews, or families, but as long as they are not just retreads of TNG, which is what Voy and Ent were...
Rob
Scorpio
To BECOME cool..again
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These are all very intriguing ideas, Kub. You could do ships in space, with crews, or families, but as long as they are not just retreads of TNG, which is what Voy and Ent were...
Rob
Scorpio
So ships in space aren't dead, and might be able to work?
Jeez, pick a position and stick with it, Rob.
Jeez, pick a position and stick with it, Rob.
We'll have to wait for the Star Wars series to know what "cool" is supposed to be now.
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RobertScorpio
Pariah
Ummm..I agree. But if after the mid season the point the live action SW show is barely pulling 3-4 million a week, scifi will be dead on the big networks, beyond KNIGHT RIDER of course...yippy
Rob
Thought: The ship isn't the problem. The "Monster of the week" syndrome is.
I think the lesson of DS9 is that you benefit a lot by focusing on a specific sector of space. Not a single planet or system, but a definable bit of the UFP that can be developed over more than an episode. On a RL basis, this has the bonus of allowing money to be saved on sets/CGI.
Thought 2: Perfection is overrated.
Don't touch the "flagship of Starfleet/the UFP". Pick a normal ship, and keep it a normal ship. Not a special ship (a la Defiant), a normal ship.
Thought 3: That goes for the wider society double.
It's hard to relate to a society with none of the worries of normal society. The UFP should be optimistic, but not perfect.
Money should still exist. The idea otherwise was the dumbest thing Trek has ever done.
The Seven Deadly Sins should still motivate a lot of people. So should their virtuous counterparts, too. I've felt like TNG, VOY, even DS9 to an extent, you didn't see that.
Starfleet officers, even Our Heroes, need to be peccable and fallible. Capable, to translate, of sin and error. And not because of some microbe, but because they just are.
I thiink that's what's wrong, from my POV. Trek got too dependent on tech and on "weird shit" - The people are too perfect to be believable, the attempts at social commentary too often heavyhanded. None of this works to tell good stories.
But how do you fix it after the last 30-odd years?
I think the lesson of DS9 is that you benefit a lot by focusing on a specific sector of space. Not a single planet or system, but a definable bit of the UFP that can be developed over more than an episode. On a RL basis, this has the bonus of allowing money to be saved on sets/CGI.
Thought 2: Perfection is overrated.
Don't touch the "flagship of Starfleet/the UFP". Pick a normal ship, and keep it a normal ship. Not a special ship (a la Defiant), a normal ship.
Thought 3: That goes for the wider society double.
It's hard to relate to a society with none of the worries of normal society. The UFP should be optimistic, but not perfect.
Money should still exist. The idea otherwise was the dumbest thing Trek has ever done.
The Seven Deadly Sins should still motivate a lot of people. So should their virtuous counterparts, too. I've felt like TNG, VOY, even DS9 to an extent, you didn't see that.
Starfleet officers, even Our Heroes, need to be peccable and fallible. Capable, to translate, of sin and error. And not because of some microbe, but because they just are.
I thiink that's what's wrong, from my POV. Trek got too dependent on tech and on "weird shit" - The people are too perfect to be believable, the attempts at social commentary too often heavyhanded. None of this works to tell good stories.
But how do you fix it after the last 30-odd years?
- The technobabble has become tedious and sometimes interferes with the core stories. This wasn't the case in the (good) TOS episodes.
I bet we wouldn't have had a "guardian of forever" episode in post TOS trek without the mention of chroniton particles or whatever. no one needs that. We can imagine some people on the bridge -off screen- monitoring such stuff and discussing it. But I don't need to hear this bullshit in every scene and particularly between the main characters.
- No more pushing buttons to solve problems (except the torpedoes away button maybe).
Once they allow it to take hold again (and they will), we will the the same technobabble shit reemerge. They should actively try to resist using it.
- Also Star Trek needs more "alien aliens", also alien wildlife. Humanoid aliens worked well in DS9, but in general, it should be avoided imo.
I even would use the translators like in "Dune" so that the alien's lips are not in synch. Like in TOS, they should also have creepy accents when speaking English.
- Show us those people are from a distant future full of alien species. Cats and dogs are just lame. baseball and darts? C'mon. Show us how life in the future has changed without taking the easy way (holodeck for example). Alien food and the occasional name dropping (Parrises Sqares) is cool but not enough.
- Star Trek needs to "consolidate". Show us the role of humanity in the Federation and Starleet. Show us maps.
Have a vision for the future and don't be afraid to go into detail and stick with what you say. Just remember how the vision of the prime directive for example has been handled so inconsistently and only as a tool for anything the story required.
- Bigger structures and spaces. Something I always loved about SW. Star Trek TMP tried it too (rec deck and loading bay) and it worked great.
- Show space as BIG again, as full of wonders, not full of humanoids with samey look and cookie cutter worlds. It always seems a nice planet with friendly bumpheaded humanoids is just round the corner.
- I agree about characters should be fallible and little heroic. But remember the second scene ever in Star Trek? Pike in the sickbay? It was always there in Trek.
- NO MORE kiddy stuff.
- show us earth. And something beyond France, new Orleans and California.
- Show us interesting alien societies, how they work. i can't believe the Andorians on ENT are praised when we never even saw one of their regular cities nor did we learn anything special about them. This is something Star Trek somehow never really managed well. When we first saw Vulcan, it was about guys fighting over women. And Bajoran culture wasn't really exciting either.
- There does not need to be ONE episode of the captain crawling about the ship taking out goons or creatures. I hate that crap. No more "alien take over the ship episodes" EVER
- no crashed shuttles. Or at least have a limit of one episode per season.
I bet we wouldn't have had a "guardian of forever" episode in post TOS trek without the mention of chroniton particles or whatever. no one needs that. We can imagine some people on the bridge -off screen- monitoring such stuff and discussing it. But I don't need to hear this bullshit in every scene and particularly between the main characters.
- No more pushing buttons to solve problems (except the torpedoes away button maybe).
Once they allow it to take hold again (and they will), we will the the same technobabble shit reemerge. They should actively try to resist using it.
- Also Star Trek needs more "alien aliens", also alien wildlife. Humanoid aliens worked well in DS9, but in general, it should be avoided imo.
I even would use the translators like in "Dune" so that the alien's lips are not in synch. Like in TOS, they should also have creepy accents when speaking English.
- Show us those people are from a distant future full of alien species. Cats and dogs are just lame. baseball and darts? C'mon. Show us how life in the future has changed without taking the easy way (holodeck for example). Alien food and the occasional name dropping (Parrises Sqares) is cool but not enough.
- Star Trek needs to "consolidate". Show us the role of humanity in the Federation and Starleet. Show us maps.
Have a vision for the future and don't be afraid to go into detail and stick with what you say. Just remember how the vision of the prime directive for example has been handled so inconsistently and only as a tool for anything the story required.
- Bigger structures and spaces. Something I always loved about SW. Star Trek TMP tried it too (rec deck and loading bay) and it worked great.
- Show space as BIG again, as full of wonders, not full of humanoids with samey look and cookie cutter worlds. It always seems a nice planet with friendly bumpheaded humanoids is just round the corner.
- I agree about characters should be fallible and little heroic. But remember the second scene ever in Star Trek? Pike in the sickbay? It was always there in Trek.
- NO MORE kiddy stuff.
- show us earth. And something beyond France, new Orleans and California.
- Show us interesting alien societies, how they work. i can't believe the Andorians on ENT are praised when we never even saw one of their regular cities nor did we learn anything special about them. This is something Star Trek somehow never really managed well. When we first saw Vulcan, it was about guys fighting over women. And Bajoran culture wasn't really exciting either.
- There does not need to be ONE episode of the captain crawling about the ship taking out goons or creatures. I hate that crap. No more "alien take over the ship episodes" EVER
- no crashed shuttles. Or at least have a limit of one episode per season.
That's what, the 3rd topic he opened here just for the heck of it?
I mean the last ideas weren't good, either...you doing this just to open topics?
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Okay...I get the hint. I'll hold off posting again until all my current topics are off the board. Sorry if I over did it. I'll go pester the fan production forum for a while...but while I am gone, some one better post some topics on the future of trek!!!!
Aloha
Aloha
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I agree with this, I've always viewed the characters of Star Trek as appealing but far too perfect that I almost couldn't identify with them. For a show to be successful the characters have to be available and capable of being connectable to the viewers. How can I care about a character I can't emotionally identify with?
Star Trek in the last few series' seemed to cling WAY TOO MUCH to the same old ideas just because they were successful decades before. But things change, society changes, people change and the shows and writing needs to adapt to that change to survive.
I want to see Star Trek thrive again but try as I might, I don't have any ideas, answers, or suggestions on how to make Star Trek successful again. I think eventually the time will come again for TV Star Trek, but that time is not now.
I knew it wouldn't be long before this thread was all about the new movie and how it is wrong for us, for the fans and for the world in general... yada, yada yada........................
A ship in space series could be serialized. There's nothing stopping it from being so. For every mission to be exactly the length of one episode was always artificial. Why couldn't there be a mission that takes a year? (ENT actually did this in the third season).
The funny thing is, I don't think Star Trek's basic premise has been oversaturated. Enterprise's function is to serve a role that is both cop and military, protecting the Federation from internal and external threats. Plus exploration but with a very goal-oriented bent. They're always after new Federation members to make the Fed stronger.
TOS and TNG used that premise in episodes, maybe half of the episodes when you delete all the holosuite adventures and personal stories. Really, TOS was far more direct about the cop/soldier thing; TNG sort of shied away from it. DS9 did the space soldier thing, but in an overarching war format we don't need to return to. ENT used the premise only in S3 and S4. VOY didn't use the premise at all.
The original TOS premise is still sitting around, waiting to be used. Add a more serialized (but not exclusively serialized) approach and it could be very novel and fresh.
This is a little OT, but I might actually like seeing something like OP's Frank Grayson concept in the next show. Not the part about a fanboy getting to meet Kirk. But the idea of present-time people joining the crew of a federation ship (or strafleet academy 
) as a bridging device... If done right, that could be extremely cool. 
) as a bridging device... If done right, that could be extremely cool. 
I think to be GOOD again (and I think that a good show will become cool even if it doesn't follow the latest trends) is to go back to the basics. Not meaning just go back to TOS era, but go back and find out what made that sucker fly in the first place. To me, I think it was that it was a scifi, it didn't appologize for it. It asked the big questions, and it didn't really provide easy outs.
So if I were to get control I'd do several things:
1.) Hire the best Science Fiction writers I can find. Preferably the ones who haven't marinated in the Trekverse. We'll use reference book for that, I just don't want minds that are locked into "X is the real Trek". I hope this will get stories that surprise even me. I bet if the stories surprise me, they'd surprise most jaded scifi fans. That will get attention.
2.) I'd ban certain story lines. No holodeck malfunctions, no transporter malfunctions, ship invasions, and time travel. They've been done so often that no one is impressed anymore. It trek wants to be good, at the very least it needs to dump the old tired plots in favour of something interesting.
3.) The characters would be more humanlike, and I would allow for some cultural mixing between aliens. I don't see any reason why a Vulcan cannot accept Kahless or a Klingon believe in the Bajoran Prophets. I think it would be more interesting to have flawed characters who aren't exactly what you expect. Most crews seem to be too boring and predictable.
4.) No resets and no easy outs. If you absolutely can't come up with a rational way to save a character, he dies. And he stays dead. If something is broken beyond repair, they can't use it until it gets fixed.
I don't think ships in space is a dead concept. Just be willing to make sure that you're doing a great scifi. Ask the tough questions without an easy answer. Try to tell untreklike storys that capture the trek-nature. It's possible.
So if I were to get control I'd do several things:
1.) Hire the best Science Fiction writers I can find. Preferably the ones who haven't marinated in the Trekverse. We'll use reference book for that, I just don't want minds that are locked into "X is the real Trek". I hope this will get stories that surprise even me. I bet if the stories surprise me, they'd surprise most jaded scifi fans. That will get attention.
2.) I'd ban certain story lines. No holodeck malfunctions, no transporter malfunctions, ship invasions, and time travel. They've been done so often that no one is impressed anymore. It trek wants to be good, at the very least it needs to dump the old tired plots in favour of something interesting.
3.) The characters would be more humanlike, and I would allow for some cultural mixing between aliens. I don't see any reason why a Vulcan cannot accept Kahless or a Klingon believe in the Bajoran Prophets. I think it would be more interesting to have flawed characters who aren't exactly what you expect. Most crews seem to be too boring and predictable.
4.) No resets and no easy outs. If you absolutely can't come up with a rational way to save a character, he dies. And he stays dead. If something is broken beyond repair, they can't use it until it gets fixed.
I don't think ships in space is a dead concept. Just be willing to make sure that you're doing a great scifi. Ask the tough questions without an easy answer. Try to tell untreklike storys that capture the trek-nature. It's possible.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Balthier..I just came across this post after sometime, and wow, Paramount should hire you if JJABRAMS fails. I think you pretty much summed up what I think needs to be done with Star Trek..bravo...
Rob
Scorpio
Ditto on that sentiment. And furthermore, may I suggest that Star Trek actually be bold again. I'm talking in terms of not just controversial issues (which modern Star Trek has consistently pussied out of BTW), but the way characters act, and the way alien cultures are.
I want edginess, but not 24/BSG edginess. It's hard to sum up what I'm thinking here, but I'm sure someone else with a better way of words is coming from the same direction.
Also, NEVER WRITE A RISA EPISODE AGAIN. The constant coy family-friendly references to sex make me want to punch myself in the face.
I want edginess, but not 24/BSG edginess. It's hard to sum up what I'm thinking here, but I'm sure someone else with a better way of words is coming from the same direction.
Also, NEVER WRITE A RISA EPISODE AGAIN. The constant coy family-friendly references to sex make me want to punch myself in the face.
Yknow what's cool? Integrity. Self-confidence. Having something to say and saying it. Those are the things that can make Star Trek cool again, regardless of whether the content has any relationship to other things currently considered "cool."
The edginess comes in by not depicting this process as unrealistically easy. The not-too-edginess comes in by depicting this process as possible and not just some kind of forelorn impossible hope in a cruel, merciless universe.
None of that is particularly "cool," but it's cool because that's what Star Trek is about, and if Star Trek simply explores its own core themes with self-confidence and not bothering to worry whether it is cool, then Star Trek will be cool.
And none of this has anything to do necessarily with what starships are depicted or whether there are episodes set on Risa. They can have Enterprise, they can have Risa, or they can ignore both and a lot of other stuff too. Worrying about that is useless; those are just details. We need to look at the big picture.
How about this: Star Trek is an exploration of the future of liberal democracy by depicting it spreading throughout space. The universality of liberal democracy is proven by all the diverse alien species that embrace it. The durability of liberal democracy is proven by the way it faces down terrible threats and eventually triumphs every time. This combines to create a sense of optimism that the audience can take back and apply to their own lives.
The edginess comes in by not depicting this process as unrealistically easy. The not-too-edginess comes in by depicting this process as possible and not just some kind of forelorn impossible hope in a cruel, merciless universe.
None of that is particularly "cool," but it's cool because that's what Star Trek is about, and if Star Trek simply explores its own core themes with self-confidence and not bothering to worry whether it is cool, then Star Trek will be cool.
And none of this has anything to do necessarily with what starships are depicted or whether there are episodes set on Risa. They can have Enterprise, they can have Risa, or they can ignore both and a lot of other stuff too. Worrying about that is useless; those are just details. We need to look at the big picture.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Trek dosent need to become cool, it needs to become relevant. People watch TV because of two reasons.
1) we're bored out of our trees and need entertainment becase the computer and the Xbox isnt cutting it.
2) we want to watch the show because it has a good story, and we can relate to the characters. Plus we all love an' expolsion or two.
So the question here is; how the hell do we appeal to the audence?
Gene Roddenberry had the forumula down, an optimistic view of the future where every one is equal. Sounds good back in the '60's and it would sound good now. But because of recent events, most people are very skeptical, so to have a show with a perfect future wont do well.Trek needs poltical elements and political structure items that arn't on the main burner of the show but can and will affect the actions of the crew. If the show is set after Picards era the Federation will have to be weak militarly wise and economicly wise as well, to paralell the current problems of the US of A. The characters need flaws! It's what makes them applealing to us as a viewer. No more monster of the week, have plot arcs that will span episodes. If the next TV trek is to do weel it will need that edge of realism and the hook; explosions, blood, and gore.
Although Im sure somebody else said this ^ before me.
Oh BTW, hello, I'm new.
1) we're bored out of our trees and need entertainment becase the computer and the Xbox isnt cutting it.
2) we want to watch the show because it has a good story, and we can relate to the characters. Plus we all love an' expolsion or two.
So the question here is; how the hell do we appeal to the audence?
Gene Roddenberry had the forumula down, an optimistic view of the future where every one is equal. Sounds good back in the '60's and it would sound good now. But because of recent events, most people are very skeptical, so to have a show with a perfect future wont do well.Trek needs poltical elements and political structure items that arn't on the main burner of the show but can and will affect the actions of the crew. If the show is set after Picards era the Federation will have to be weak militarly wise and economicly wise as well, to paralell the current problems of the US of A. The characters need flaws! It's what makes them applealing to us as a viewer. No more monster of the week, have plot arcs that will span episodes. If the next TV trek is to do weel it will need that edge of realism and the hook; explosions, blood, and gore.
Although Im sure somebody else said this ^ before me.
Oh BTW, hello, I'm new.
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