ALL SCI-FI

[bulldogtrekker]

EDITORIAL — The Future of Star Trek: It's the Story, Stupid
by TrekMovie.com Staff

The following essay comes to us from Lukas Kendall at Film Score Monthly (www.filmscoremonthly.com), whose Star Trek credentials including producing or co-producing most of the recent collector's edition soundtrack CDs like the 15-disc La-La Land Records TOS box set. He also assisted with the recent publication of Return to Tomorrow, the oral history of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Lukas says he's a lifelong Trekker who follows the ongoing dialogue about the franchise, and thought he had something to add about its fundamental appeal — and, among other things, the reason why J.J. Trek is so polarizing.



There has been a cottage industry of essays about how to make Star Trek more popular. Many of the prescriptions are simple: Put it back on television. Hire good people to make it. (Certainly, good creators always help.)

But there is a basic assumption that Star Trek could be every bit as successful as the Marvel universe or Star Wars — or even DC — if only CBS and Paramount could work through their business problems.

I think it's not so simple — and the reason why is not a matter of taste. It is a matter of story.

Star Wars and the Marvel movies are action-packed spectacles that appeal to attention-deficit teenagers — the blockbuster sweet spot. Star Trek, by contrast, appeals to the brainy outsider. It's slow, talky, even philosophical — a little bit like eating your vegetables.

The same things that are the source of Star Trek's appeal are also the source of its limitations. Try to change it to appeal to everyone, and you'll appeal to no one......

Television

A common refrain is to put Star Trek back on television and make it for adults — the Mad Men or Game of Thrones of Star Trek series. Sounds exciting!

It's also impossible. You can't make the "adult" Star Trek series because Star Trek is not about adults. It can be for adults, but it is not about them.

What are the driving realities of adult life? Sex and money. What is never in Star Trek? Sex and money.

Sure, there's suggested sex. Off-screen sex. Characters have romantic relationships, but viewed as a child would—Mommy and Daddy go to their room, and come out the next morning.

Money? There are "credits" but I still don't understand the Federation's economic system. Do the crew get paid? Is the Federation communist? (There was a great article about this:https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50)

There have already been 726 episodes and 12 movies of Star Trek — and too many of them revolve around misunderstood space anomalies.

Would it be best to start from scratch? Creatively — no doubt about it. But Star Trek fans would never allow that. Star Trek is not like James Bond or Batman, where every decade you cast a new actor and wipe the slate clean. Or like Marvel's movies and TV series, which are drawn from fifty years of mythology, but nobody expects them to slavishly reproduce the comic books — or even be consistent with each other.

Star Trek fans demand every installment connect with every other one. We already have the "Abramsverse", which was cleverly constructed as an alternate reality. Can there be another recasting, with a third actor playing Kirk, or a second playing Picard? I doubt it.

Stay in the Abramsverse? Possibly, but Into Darkness demonstrated the problem of doing this: you're constantly running into characters and scenarios you already know. Not only do the writers have to tell the same story twice — for the people who know the original, and the ones who don't — but it's never as good the second time.

Go another hundred years into the future, aboard the Enterprise-G? Maybe. But no matter what, you have a consistent, intricate universe that has to be respected. Hard to bump into an asteroid without it being like that time on Gamma Epsilon VI.

Star Trek already had one fundamental storytelling upgrade: when The Next Generation got good in season three (circa 1990) and took a turn into Philip K. Dick issues of perception and reality — which is to say, postmodernism. It jettisoned the 1960s melodrama — great move — but replaced it with technobabble. Ugh.

The Problem With Star Trek

Unlike the Marvel universe — which takes place in contemporary reality — Star Trek takes place in the future. And not just an abstract future, but a specific vision of the future from fifty years in the past. It's not only a period piece, but a parallel universe—a "double remove".

Before man landed on the moon, manned space travel was plausible. Roddenberry intended the bridge of the Enterprise to be completely believable. (Next to The Beverly Hillbillies, he was doing Chekhov — that's with an h.) But we now know that (Interstellar and Avatar aside) interplanetary space travel is not realistic, or certainly not happening any time soon.

As a result, Star Trek is irrevocably dated. What was meant to be the actual future has become a fantasy future — but it's not allowed to acknowledge it. Star Wars is unashamed space fantasy, set in a make-believe galaxy, but Star Trek is supposed to be real. (I guess I missed the Eugenics Wars.) Ever wonder why in Star Trek they only listen to classical music, or sometimes jazz? Hearing anything recorded after 1964 would puncture the reality (except for time travel stories). This is the same reason why The West Wing never referenced a president after Kennedy.

Roddenberry aspired to do cosmic wonder and weirdness — "The Cage", Star Trek: The Motion Picture — but these stories are wildly expensive and dramatically abstract. (How do you fight an alien that can destroy you with its thoughts?) Star Trek became a more elevated version of Flash Gordon or Buck Rodgers, a predecessor to Star Wars, transplanting 19th century colonialism (instead of feudalism) into space. Klingons instead of Russians, Romulans instead of Chinese (or vice versa). It's a futuristic version of Captain Horatio Hornblower, as Nick Meyer realized — and Roddenberry intended — that could be practically produced on a weekly basis. (Master and Commander is a great Star Trek movie.)

Why can't you do a variety of stories set in different corners of the Star Trek universe? Because Marvel can go anyplace in the contemporary world to mine relatable characters and interesting storylines — from the corridors of a high school to the streets of New York City to foreign countries to mythical Asgard. But Star Trek has to go different places within its own, make-believe universe, bound by specific storytelling and ideological rules: it is, by definition, a ship in space. They tried space without a ship (DS9), a ship lost in space (Voyager), a prequel ship (Enterprise), and an alternate universe ship (Abramsverse); how many more variations can there be? One wonders if even Star Wars will be able to sustain its "expanded universe" movies and TV series, but it has the advantages of a bigger fanbase, more action-adventure style, and fewer continuity restrictions.

How do you reinvent Star Trek for a modern television audience? There already was a terrific, adult human space drama — from one of the best Star Trek writers, Ron Moore. Battlestar Galactica was adapted from an old TV show that Moore was at complete liberty to rework (since it sucked and no one cared).

One thing Moore took care to do: no aliens. Because aliens fundamentally don't make sense. All over the galaxy, there are aliens who look and act like (white) humans with bumpy foreheads, they all speak English (somehow "universally translated"), each planet has a single culture and government, yet the Prime Minister's office consists of three people, and no society has television — really?

But we can't get rid of aliens on Star Trek — because of Spock. Who rules.

So as much as I'd love to see Star Trek on the small screen again, I question how it could be done without violating continuity or its fundamental appeal. It's certainly not suitable for a True Detective-style reimagining....

LINK FOR FULL STORY:
http://trekmovie.com/2015/01/11/editorial-the-future-of-star-trek-its-the-story-stupid/

[orzel-w]

Good, thoughtful analysis.

[Krel]

[orzel-w]

They still had the option of playing the same music from an iPod/Pad/Phone, etc., but chose vinyl instead.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Rocky Jones]

[bulldogtrekker]

How to save Star Trek: Make it the True Detective of science fiction
Todd VanDerWerff , Vox



Star Trek debuted on television on September 8, 1966. The original series was a cult hit, barely eking out a three-season run until syndicated reruns made it ubiquitous. Paramount, which owned it, took a chance on a Star Trek feature film in the late '70s, and a cult property became a cultural phenomenon.

The early '90s brought the height of the franchise. Star Trek: The Next Generation was a legitimate sensation, the sixth Star Trek feature film debuted to good box office (just under $75 million in 1991 dollars and just under $150 million when adjusted for 2015) and warm reviews, and Deep Space Nine (arguably the best Trek series) was being prepped.

But now, Star Trek is in trouble.

We're one year away from Star Trek's 50th anniversary, and it looks like what fans will get in terms of celebration is the latest installment of the new movie franchise. The third film in the series will be released in July 2016, but it's been plagued by development problems, including the original director departing and a yet-to-be-finalized script for a film that starts shooting next month. Yeah, there will probably be a TV special or something that unites the surviving cast members of the franchises in addition to the movie. But is that enough?

No. In this era when the passing of Leonard Nimoy is greeted with mourning from the president himself, Star Trek deserves better than that. Star Trek, as my friend David Sims brilliantly articulated at The Atlantic last year, deserves TV. Sims wrote:

Besides, television is a much better sandbox for the broad universe of the show. While [J.J.] Abrams's recent films took advantage of big budgets to give viewers cool action storytelling, that's nothing a thousand other franchises can't do. But Star Trek could always attempt much more than that, exploring ethical dilemmas of diplomacy on a galactic scale. And it did that in a much more conservative era of television. The one time Star Trek really tried long-form serialized storytelling was the Dominion War arc in the later seasons of Deep Space Nine — absolutely the series' highest point. As TV, especially online networks like Netflix, embrace serialization, imagine what more could be accomplished.

But I'm going to go one further than Sims. Yes, Trek should go back to TV. The film franchise can continue as is, as an occasional punctuation mark to whatever turns up on TV. But Paramount should also lean into Trek's malleability and turn to something that has become a TV trend in recent years — the anthological miniseries.

So let's save Star Trek.
The True Detective or Fargo of science fiction

True Detective

Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey starred in the first season of True Detective. They were great. As you'd expect. (HBO)

The anthological miniseries was invented by FX's American Horror Story in 2011, then popularized in 2014 by HBO's True Detective and FX's Fargo. The idea is that each season tells a new serialized story, featuring new characters and settings, often with entirely new actors. (American Horror Story often reuses actors; both True Detective and Fargo will not in their upcoming second seasons.)

The anthological miniseries has found a way around one of TV's most persistent problems. Yes, a show can tell a compelling story, but if its a success, then it could also run forever. That inhibits attempts to tell incisive, to-the-point stories across many years.

All stories need endings, but if writers never know when that ending will come, it's much harder to build effectively to said ending. This has always been American television's Achilles heel. Even TV's best shows have flab here and there, episodes that could have been trimmed or even cut entirely.

The anthological miniseries gets around this by allowing a show to become more of a format than a constant. True Detective isn't about following the same characters through the same wacky adventures, year after year. It's about establishing a vibe, then staying true to that vibe. Each season can tell a big, bold story, and then the next season can become even bigger and bolder.

"The anthological miniseries needs proof it can be applied to genres and formats other than crime stories"

The anthological miniseries is already drowning in shows that have taken this method and applied it to crime stories, because TV knows how to make crime stories. What it desperately needs is proof that it can be applied to other genres and forms, American Horror Story co-creator Ryan Murphy's occasional experiments with campy horror notwithstanding.

Sci-fi, with its millions of worlds and millions of stories, is a natural fit. But the genre could also use a recognizable brand name, something that would immediately tie together our hypothetical sci-fi anthological miniseries in a way that would let people know instantly what to expect, while still allowing for thousands of possibilities.

Sound like any shows you know?
Shaking up the format even more

Star Trek


You could even use this title screen. (Paramount)

But I want to go one better yet again. Instead of just shaking up the cast with each season, let's also shake up the showrunner (the head producer and writer), drawing on the rich community of Trek alumni in the TV writing community.

Hannibal and Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller (a Trek alum), for instance, would love to make a Trek series with Angela Bassett as captain of a starship. With the anthological miniseries format, both Fuller and Bassett could squeeze a 10-episode season into their busy schedules.

Or think of what Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore (who worked on many Trek series before BSG) could do by returning to the universe that gave him his big break in television, with everything he's learned since. Wouldn't you kill to see him reunite with the Next Generation cast for one last big adventure?

The wickedly sly and funny Jane Espenson, who's written for everything from Buffy to Once Upon a Time, also worked on Trek. Give her a dream cast and the budget to make a series of adventures featuring that cast, and I'd bet you'd see something amazing, and possibly more comedic than Trek usually gets.

Or just return to the roots of the anthology drama itself, to shows like The Twilight Zone, where the premise and characters changed not with every season, but with every episode.

Have one showrunner (Moore, perhaps?) gather a bunch of their favorite writers to come up with one killer Star Trek episode each. Hell, maybe even bring back William Shatner for one of these episodes, as a sort of "Captain Kirk in repose" hour. (Yeah, the series sorta turned to that idea in Star Trek: Generations, but it's still a potent one.) Just 13 singleton episodes of Trek, featuring all-star writers and actors. You don't think Netflix would put up the money for that?

"13 episodes of Trek, featuring all-star writers and actors. You don't think Netflix would put up the money for that?"

Sadly, CBS, which owns Trek's TV rights, seems only vaguely interested in the idea of returning Trek to TV. And Trek is also an uneasy fit with the kinds of serialized dramas that have gained such cachet since the last Star Trek series (Enterprise) went off the air in 2005. Yes, shows like Deep Space Nine and Enterprise had longer arcs, but they're nowhere near the complexity fellow sci-fi shows like Battlestar or Lost managed.

When Enterprise left the air, it was due to lousy ratings (though that show struggled to find its footing and arguably chased its audience away). At the time, the sense was that TV had moved past Star Trek, that the more episodic, one-and-done format of the show was in the past. But TV is cyclical, and the pendulum has swung back the other way — just not in the way anyone might have expected. Plus, as Sims points out in his Atlantic article, cult properties — with pre-built names and audiences — are much more valuable in a world where the audience has splintered into thousands of niche viewerships.

That's why the anthological miniseries fits Trek so well. It allows the show to tell small, close-ended stories, while nonetheless sitting comfortably within current TV trends. It lets the series explore an entire universe, while still giving audiences characters worth caring about.

And then, hey, if one of these new casts really pops, why not break them out into their own show? There will always be more room to explore on Star Trek.

LINK:
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/4/8143465/star-trek-true-detective

[Pow]

Thank you Bulldogtrekker. You've written what I've felt about Star Trek for some time.

The re-imagined ST movies simply aren't ST to me. Its Star Trek Wars as far as I'm concerned. ST has morphed into Star Wars.

A good friend of mine grew up with ST as I did. He embraces the recent version & is puzzled that I do not, even after I explain it to him. He's an intelligent gent, but somehow he's a fan. I'll never be.

Khan as a skinny, British actor!!! Gimme a break.

[Robert (Butch) Day]

Actually we do NOT Khan's full name. Break it down; Khan Noonian Singh:

Khan — a title for a ruler in Turkic and Mongolian languages and also used by Persians, Afghans/Pashtuns and Muslim Punjabi Rajputs for chiefs and noblemen that evolved into a surname (last name);

Singh — the word "Singh" is derived to Sanskrit Simha/Sinha meaning lion. It is used by the Sikhs by every male who is the head of a family as a surname and by their eldest sons as a middle name.

Noonian — was taken from a pilot friend of Gene's during WW II, Kim Noonian Singh, one of the Northern Indian Gurka pilots in the RAF.

Khan Noonian Singh, true man of mystery (to me).
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

Coming soon to BBC America, the series that will replace Sherlock (because the fans are tired of wait two year for three bloody episodes!)

The famous detective is "re-imagined" as a billionaire Brazilian who solves crimes committed anywhere in the world -- without ever leaving his tropical island paradise.

He brings all the suspects, all the evidence, and all the policemen from Scotland Yard to his island, where he and his loyal assistant -- Dr. Tatoo -- unravel the mystery before de plane (yes, de plane) takes everyone back home.

Don't miss the world premier of ---


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]