Babylon 5 Creator Pitches Trek 868
pdawerks writes "According to Sci-Fi Wire, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told fans on a B5 Usenet group that he and Dark Skies creator Bryce Zabel have put together an idea for a new Star Trek series, which he said would revive the ailing franchise. 'I got together [with Zabel] and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how to save [Star Trek] and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way,' Straczynski wrote. 'I actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere with Paramount, who knows?'"
What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Interesting)
BEEP! Wrong!
Think back to when ST:TNG came out. It was slick to look at, but the stories were very tame and seemed to dwell heavily on gizmos and soap opera moments. Time did the show no favors. After the first season I gave up on following it regularly, and checking in from time to time found it getting scarcely better (about 20 minutes of material stretched into 1 hour show most of the time.)
It needs to get back to its roots. Let the characters have flaws, let them make mistakes. Put irony and humor into it in difficult situations. Make the leaders make difficult choices. Make it interesting again with good stories, not practically perfect people and a lot of references to Shakespeare.
Heck, Klingons were a cold-war type adversary -- make up some nasty race like Al Qaeda and have the characters discuss how the federation got into a mess with them and try to find a way out of it.
re: what star trek needs (Score:5, Interesting)
ed
Re: what star trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Deep Space 9. Look at some of their best moments, in particular "In the Pale Moonlight".
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I think JMS should take that Trek idea and run with it in a new Universe, the way they did with Babylon 5. Bab-5 is by far one of the best Sci-Fi series ever produced, and it came from a rejected Star Trek idea pitch.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and Babylon 5 stands as the best Sci Fi TV show ever created. But its ratings at its peak never reached even the lowest ratings of the worst of the Star Trek series.
The *name* Star Trek has a built-in automatic audience that will be recognized by the networks. Star Trek's biggest weakness since TNG has been the poor writing. The natural solution is to use the ST name, and JMS' superior writing to try to fix the show. JMS has figured it out, now its just a question of whether or not Braga and Perlman can figure it out.
Are you Berman or Braga? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Insightful)
Shit, they even did a whole PATRIOT Act thing (years before it was topical), with squads of Star Fleet commandos combing the earth in search of shape changing aliens who could be anybody. Sisko broke down into a quivering mass at one point -- his father, stubborn as he was, refused to have his blood tested and the captain was forced to admit he was in way over his head.
That was from season 4. It didn't get REALLY good until the beginning of Season 6, when half the station was working for the enemy and trying to subvert it without detection while the other half was leading the war against them. You haven't seen an episode of star trek until you've seen a thousand Romulan, Kilgon and Star Fleet warships, many of them Constitution class, reduced to smoldering rubble by a combined Cardassian and Jemhadar fleet. That's the kind of gripping, "holy shit Star Fleet isn't perfect" TV that can watch again and again.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly! Star Trek doesn't need another reinvention. It needs the friggin writing team from DS9 to come back!
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Bring back that writing team, PLEASE.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, it was a good idea. It was an effort to have interesting, flawed characters, and a story arc that grew over time. Setting it on a station gave them the ability to have a lot of recurring characters like Gul Dukat who 'lived in the neighborhood' or were just passing through. One thing that Enterprise has been lacking is supporting characters. Apparently in the current season, they have some recurring Xindi guys, and future dude, which is good, I guess. But, Enterprise just fucked everything all up.
DS9 is like IE. Sure, having a web browser is a good idea, but the implimentation was flawed. Babylon 5 was like mozilla. Less emphasis on presentation and broad appeal, more on the guts.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Interesting)
How about the one where the Maquis are poisoning Cardassian planets with a chemical that isn't toxic to non-Cardassians...so Sisko poisons THEIR planets. Actually fires missiles full of poison gas onto them, with the whole crew of the Defiant looking at him like "whoa, dude! way out of line!" The look on O'Brian's face...and the fact that Dax actually refuses the order at first...made this an awesome episode, one that changed your opinion of the captain.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what did they do with this potentially brilliant enemy?
They *humanized* them.
Hugh Borg was bad. But that cretinous film with the Borg Queen in it was worse.
Man, they really fucked that one up.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
-aiabx
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:5, Interesting)
Rick Anderson is fantastic in that show. Amanda Tapping is damn cute. Sometimes they smooch!
B5 needed better comedic timing, SG1 has it. Anderson brings that, but the writers are actually good, too. See "The Other Guys." Hilarious!
It was the first series in a long time that I actually looked forward to seeing.
(there goes my karma!)
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Funny)
I'm just guessing here, but do you *look* like the comic book guy from the Simpsons too?
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Enterpise, on the other hand, actually has some shows worth watching from time to time. The characters are developing and plots lines are getting better. Compare that to TNG and you'll see a very strong parallel. Voyage just got worse, tragically so. Janeway became more stupid and pethetic with each show. Enterprise and TNG got better with each show. DS9 often got better by leaps and bounds as the shows continued to be made.
While I'm sure that many love to hate Enterprise, I remember one of the big reasons that I heard about for a long time. That was the intro-theme song. Talk about closed minded, easily ignored opinions. Sure, maybe you hate the song, but who cares. Does it provide a good trek-fest for you? Is it entertaining? The answer is yes, or mostly so. Yet, it's still trying to find it's place, just as TNG did for the first three seasons. IMO, Voyager is what destroyed the value of the trek franshise. If Enterprise can find it's place this next season, then I'll consider it a success. If not, then I'll probably have to write it off. Just the same, Enterprise is a fairly interesting take on the trek-verse, even if there are many plot lines that I personally don't like how they rolled them out.
Eh....but that's all just one man's opinion.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Insightful)
What? Like the "forcefield-invented-by-Reed" episode, or the "Phase-Cannons-invented-by-Tucker" episode? Yeah, there was a lot of potential there, but B&B pissed it away.
For example, I though it would be really cool if the early Enterprise eventually gets some deflector shields, but they suck and they're always breaking.
Actually, I'd rather have seen something more contemporary. The torpedos were the right idea, but they were pop-caps. They SHOULD have been fighting space battles the way God intended them to be fought: With Nuclear Warheads! By God, it would have been cool to see them plotting the trajectory of each warhead, and sweating bullets as each enemy torpedo barely missed! It would have been even better if the only protection they had was some form of radiation shielding. I mean, BLOW A FEW HOLES IN THE THING.
When the Romulan War broke out (oh wait, they screwed that up), you would have seen the Enterprise fighting side by side with her less advanced counterparts, and watched in horror as friends made over the last few episodes bit the dust. Make it like WWII! Bring back the combined thrill and horror of what a REAL war is like. Nooooo, instead we have to hold onto Shields, Phasers, Photon Torpedos, Romulan Cloaking Devices (WTF?), and other future goodies. Oh, and the Borg have to show up to make things interesting. And the Science officer has to wear a Catsuit. (Do you what kinds of problems that would cause on a REAL ship like Enterprise? You'd constantly be having to deal with situations of attempted rape!)
Bah. Enterprise. Horrible garbage.
Perhaps just a total re-engineering... (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem, I believe, with Star Trek is that they've tended to let the show ride on random events rather than running plots. The times when they have gone to more of a story arc they have made the shows far more worthwhile.
Enterprise has done this to some extent over the last season, tracking down the Xindi and it really helped give the show some energy. Deep Space nine had the same sort of thing happen when they had the shape shifter backed armada coming to wipe out their part of the galaxy. ST:TNG has the Borg and a few other running threads.
But overall, with Star Trek, these runing plots have always felt kinda tacked on. Something to drive a season finale, etc. I think starting a new series with a defined story arc over a fixed period like they did with Babylon 5 would really do well.
For example, perhaps do a series that's entirely focussed on the events that take place during the creation of a peace accord with the Klingons. Pick some key moment in federation history and depict it's course over a period of time. Project star trek out into the future and have some run in with a new species perhaps? What about a major civil war with the federation? There's a lot that can be done with this that could really make for an interesting show.
But anyhow, if they want to go that direction and really freshen the show, I think they can. If they try to crank out yet another bland spinoff, it's going to fail. So if they don't want to try something truly new with it, they need to mothball it for like 20 years. Then they can go back and do the same tired old concept again.
Open Letter to Rick Berman... (Score:5, Funny)
(Opening comm channel to the UPN Flagship Berman...)
"Captain Berman, First Officer Braga. Only one man - J. M. Straczynski - has done battle with broadcast studio executives while being able to produce five years of good science fiction television. He is behind me. You are front of me. If your employer values the deep-space franchise, be somewhere else!"
Re:Perhaps just a total re-engineering... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps just a total re-engineering... (Score:5, Interesting)
Easily the best 5 years of SCI FI on television ever. Ok maybe 4, season one was iffy.
Re:Perhaps just a total re-engineering... (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I don't think you'd have trouble digging up writers and actors that would be willing to do one cool episode of star trek.
Re:Perhaps just a total re-engineering... (Score:4, Insightful)
Voyager was Gilligan's Island in space. You knew that if they ever got off the island, the series was over.
-- Rich
The underlying problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember cringing at some of the earlier TNG episodes that ended with Riker making some inane remark and Picard saying "Agreed!" * YAWN *
I find it very hard to believe that this state of utopia will ever be reached, because every improvement in society brings its own drawbacks. For example, the richest country in the world today has still not managed to find happiness, look at the sheer size of the shrink and self-help industry. The nation with the highest car-ownership in the world has brought with it an epidemic of obesity and enormous environmental problems. Bottom line, for every problem you solve in society, another is created. This is something that's missing from the humans in the Trek universe.
Lastly, from a drama point of view, people happily getting along makes for unbelievably boring TV. Remember the Itchy & Scratchy episodes where they became best friends? All the kids in Springfield started switching off their TVs and went out to play. We demand TV that keeps us indoors!!!
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Informative)
1) "Aww! It's a cute little space alien!! Wook at the cute wittle space alien! Let me pet it and stroke it and help it and dont screw up the Primary Directive and...."
2) "Oh no! It's a Rift!! Quick! get the "How to use the Deflector to fix a rip in the space-time continuium" manual and fix it before it destroys the universe! It's under the "What to do when the Holodeck Goes self aware and traps the crew" manual!"
3) "Oops! We Traveled Through Time!! Lets get out of here before we screw up histo...Wait a Second, WE ALREADY SCREWED IT UP! OH NO! WE GOT TO FIX IT!!
Anything new that doesn't revole around these three things would be refreshing.
Personally I would like to see a war break out between the Federation and something else. It doesn't matter who the "Something Else" is, as long as it Lasts for the majority of the series. They could have focused on the war that the Enterprise C was involved in and run with it, or either Focus on a war in the Future timeline, or something, but at the very least drop the Peaceful stuff for awile and show some interesting battles, technology and space warfare tactics.
Re:What Star Trek needs (Score:4, Funny)
2) "Oh no! It's a Rift!!"
3) "Oops! We Traveled Through Time!!"
Does this mean they've stopped doing Holodeck stories? Thank God!
Good device in TNG, horribly unimaginative by the time they were doing Voyager.
Sorry - rest of the comment (Score:5, Insightful)
I think DS9 started off slow but improved and had some great episodes like "The Vistor" #75 (many fathers appreciated it). They introduced the "runabout" (cool ride, kinda like the winnebago of the 24th century) and the "Defiant" (one very bad ass, greatly overweaponed ship). The wormhole allowed for someone interesting plot additions. They showed us how a lot of different species lived, many more than any other ST series.
Not to be forgotten, the "Ferengi Rules of Acquisition" gave interesting insite to greed.
34 - War is good for business.
35 - Peace is good for business.
239 - Never be afraid to mislabel a product.
261 - A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.
Morals were well tested. A "former terrorist", Major Kira, became a respected leader while still having a few terrorist traits; interesting when one thinks of the use of the word "terrorist" today. Some "Black and White" morals were shown to have acceptable shades of grey. To many DS9 was as good as TNG. I think the exploration into the psychology of people make it a good show. Different for TNG, but still good science fiction. And yes, the long lesbian kiss.
Imagine what Straczynski and Zabel could done with it though. There's a lot of life left in the ST franchise.
Re:but alien nazis? (Score:5, Interesting)
And alien nazis (just say it out loud, with a smile in your voice--and remember that, by the 'trek cronology, we're all slaves to Khan right about now)
Where was I? Oh, yes.
The alien nazi (singluar, remember) is a great example of the subtle fact that Enterprise brings into the central focus a topic that goes hand-in-hand with FTL travel and has been only tangentially mentioned in previous Star Treks: Time Travel.
Enterprise is ALL about time travel--it's not set "before Kirk", it's set long after Janeway, after the Federation has won and perfected time travel. It's just told from the story of a ship that blew up in the history that Kirk knew, and only launched because of an incident that never happened to Kirk's historical Johnathan Archer.
Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Captain, it's a planet where they allow men to marry men and women to marry women!"
"Well, that's something Earth had to recognise as a fundamental human right..."
"But, Captain, they're doing it in polygamus unions!"
"WHAT!?!? Helm to starboard! Weapons officer, load all topedo tubes! Raze their capitol!!"
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's after the Dominion has started to make in-roads to the alpha quadrant that Cisco and Odo go back to earth to head up security.
During the course of events, it becomes clear that a high-ranking Starfleet official is using the paranoia surronding the possibility of 'changling' terrorist attacks to repeal rights and declare martial law on earth.
Seeing it on SpikeTV a month or so ago, it really struck a nerve with the current state of affairs and the 'Patriot' Act.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Informative)
Similar to one of the Orig. Star Trek movies, the one where effectively a cabal of military and diplomats try to keep the Klingon - Federation rivalry going.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is basically what the Axis did in WWII. It's also cropped up in fictional works like 1984, Aeon Flux, Equilibrium, etc.
But you're probably right in that Star Trek has a wider audience than any of those things right now.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no. Hilter took power in Germany by leveraging nationalist and racist fervor, and working popular anger about unfair WW1 reparations treaties. The Japanese empire was a result of popular imperialist ideals dating from the 19th century, and a desire to prove themselves as a major world power. In the Soviet Union (which 1984 was meant to represent), the totalitarian state was a direct outgrowth of the popular communist revolution. In none of these cases was fear of terrorism at all a factor. (I haven't heard those science fiction books you mention, though.)
The importance of terrorism in world politics is actually a rather new thing dating from the 90s. In the past, terrorists had neither WMD nor suicide bombing techniques, so they were much less dangerous. The Star Trek writers probably were more inspired by current events than history.
Side note: what is it with people conflating fascism, stalinism and (the comparatively *extremely* tame) current US rights restrictions as if they were all the same? These are all completely different, both qualitatively and quantitatively! It makes me grind my teeth together whenever somebody uses 1984 as an analogy for a contemporary phenomenon. 1984 is about communism, and communism is dead. It's just not very relevant anymore.
Terrorism and WWII (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no. Hilter took power in Germany by leveraging nationalist and racist fervor, and working popular anger about unfair WW1 reparations treaties.
Um, yes. The burning of the Reichstag [wikipedia.org] was a critical point in the rise of the Third Reich. A shocking, sudden terrorist action was used as a pretext for abolishing civil liberties provided by the Constitution of the Weimar Republic. All in the name of "defense of the Fatherland", you understand.
It is simply unacceptable that in a post-9/11, post-PATRIOT world that citizens of the U.S. would be unaware of how fear of terrorism can and has been used to strip people of their rights.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: Which act by an Albanian Arnarchist group started WWI?
Q: What were the origins of the Mafia?
Q: What happened at the Munich Olympics?
Q: What happened in Iran which led to the downfall of Carter, and how many billion did Reagan pay for a ransom?
Just being not being aware of examples before the 1990's doesn't mean it didn't happen.
1984 is about a totalitarian state, and there are still a few of those on earth. Aspects of it also give us an idea of what can happen if things are taken to extremes in other parts of the world which have mostly benevolent regimes.Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, no. Hilter took power in Germany by leveraging nationalist and racist fervor, and working popular anger about unfair WW1 reparations treaties
(Pilkul, you ignorant slut...) Hitler came to political prominence as you describe. He did not take power until he orchestrated the burning of the Reichstag, and blaming the attack on the communists. Basically, a group of undesirables, destroying a symbol of the German "democratic" government, in order to foment civil war amongst its citizens. Its the classic method (at the time) the communists rose to power. It was that fear that certainly galvanized unity behind Hitler by its German citizenry. Just because they didn't call it terrorism back then, didn't mean it wasn't, nor any of those played out concepts which was known since Pericles.
1984 is about communism, and communism is dead. It's just not very relevant anymore.
Bullsh*t. 1984 was about totalitarianism. Yes Orwell was solidly anti-communist, and yes 1984 was an inference to communist governments. But note that there were social classes in 1984's society (proles, outer circle, inner circle), and the need to maintain control over the populace by constantly fomenting war, and using nationalism and fear to keep them in line. Its not surprising you think 1984 is not relevant anymore, you can't even use what little historical knowlege you possess to apply it to modern conditions.
JMS did this already (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, all the good aspects that people rave about in DS9, B5 did first. DS9 was just a Paramount copy of B5, quite frankly -- almost to the point of lawsuit.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Insightful)
Or "The Host" (TNG 97), where Dr. Crusher falls in love with a visiting ambassador. When he dies, it is revealed he is a Trill, part of a symbiotic species. The humanoid is merely the host for a worm-like creature that stores the memories and emotions of all previous hosts. The next host of her lover turns out to be a woman. A woman who still loves Beverly . .
Or "Hide and Q" (TNG 111), where Riker is given the godlike power of the Q Continuum, and most realise for himself that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absoloutly."
I could go on, but I don't think it's really necessary, as these are just the ones of the top of my head about a series that hasn't been first run in a decade.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Interesting)
What's worse, is that they did make it topical, but never actually explored the moral implications that arose from the situation. This last season's arc was about what was essentially a terrorist act that destroyed half of Florida.
So you can see where they were trying to be topical. They just didn't do a good job of exploring the moral implications of Archer's actions, such as torture, theft, and possibly even murder, but I can't remember. All in the pursuit of the terrorists. The ethical debate on the use of torture is even more important now, and that debate was simply missing.
I wanted to see some actual ramifications, some thoughts, possibly even some regret that it had come to this. The Federation as presented in TOS, TNG,DS9, and even Voyager would be appalled at those actions. A lot of people disliked Voyager, but at least the discussion of the morals and ethics of the Federation in that situation. That was horribly missing in Enterprise.
I'll admit that they did at least show that some of the Xindi were compassionate individuals who were trying to protect their people.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Insightful)
> destroyed half of Florida.
The Xindi are open aggressors, not terrorists. Their attack is a preemptive strike agains a species they believe will destroy theirs. In any case, Archer still has the same dilemma.
> The ethical debate on the use of torture is even more important now, and that
> debate was simply missing.
The idea of having to cross the line when the stakes are high, including the use of torture, is central to the whole 3rd season. I think you just missed it:
302 - Anomaly - is torture acceptable when the stakes are high? Send moral care of Alan Dershowitz
307 - The Shipment - plan to bomb a weapons factory. kidnap, interrogate, mull over killing unwitting arms supplier.
315 - Harbinger - denying the sick pain meds so interrogation is possible
317 - Hatchery - is saving an insectoid hatchery giving aid to the enemy?
318 - Azati Prime - Archer destroys a defenseless manned listening post in order to avoid detection
319 - Damage - Enterprise commits piracy for the cause
320 - The Forgotten - How far do you go, how many people do you order to their deaths in the name of a cause? When is it no longer worth it?
321 - E^2 - Explores cognitive dissonance - abandoning your own ethics to complete a mission - forgetting your roots (the metaphor in this episode is obvious)
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:4, Interesting)
Its pretty much like every single episode of the West Wing, except there at least they don't have to put alien spots on the non-traditional polygamous union of free spirits they want us to be ok with.
Re:Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a scriptwriter! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that he was a bad character, I always thought the Picard-Q fight was the brightest point in the series, Picard's humanity being a perfect foil to Q's view of humans as worthless. It's just that there's a whole bunch of humans, and only one Captain(Admiral Selectee) Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise. Contrast that with the characters on B5, and we're talking doctors, policemen, Ambassadors and Politicians too, but the doctors and soldiers and policemen and "Joe Random Aliens" usually lead the show, with the bigwigs just trying to balance the politics out so war doesn't break out.
Some of the early movies had great material to start with(the Klingons joining the federation could have been a great movie), yet turned out to be not as good as they could be, mostly to leave more room for special effects and fight scenes. The problem is that the Star Fleet/Federation of Planets gimmick means that fight scenes shouldn't be that common, except for the villain of the week, and few things kill a story as fast as a villain of the week. Q was a great villain, he kept coming back, we could defeat him, but never kill him and he went away only when he wanted to. He kept making humans be as human as they could be, only to prove him wrong, and that usually makes for a great story. Few B5 characters needed help in being more human, except maybe for the Vorlons(and with such help, they were downright interesting), and that's probably a design decision on their part(a good one in fact).
Heres a treatment (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Heres a treatment (Score:3, Funny)
Wil Wheaton is very excited about this (Score:5, Funny)
-- Not Wil Wheaton
Ya know... (Score:3, Interesting)
That episode of ST:TNG was one of the most spiritual. Here's Wesley, trying to be like his Dad. He finally figures out that he's not his dad and his destiny is somewhere/something else. I'm kind of disappointed that he had to be turned into a demigod of sort, but the underlying(grammar?) theme is all the same - he has to become his own man.
Think about it, Star Trek is all about being in Star Fleet. What if you don't want to be in Star Fleet in the St
An idea for the pilot... (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Archer of enterprise saves the life of a crew mate and SUDDENLY disappears in a flash of blue. He awakes to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that are not his own...
I know what you guys are thinking...
"OH.... BOY"
Re:An idea for the pilot... (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep expecting Al to show up with his little tricorder dealie.
Also, WTF was up with the last episode of Quantum Leap? Worst series-ending EVER!
I've got an idea to save Trek... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've got an idea to save Trek... (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, Berman and Bragga are the 'anti-roddenberries'.
Want to revive Trek? Get red of B&B. Do a well-done mini-series on Star Fleet academy -- hell, Scotty could be teaching an engineering class and finally REALLY retire. Run a series spinnoff from characters introduced there -- if it's popular.
-jhon
Re:I've got an idea to save Trek... (Score:5, Funny)
Do a well-done mini-series on Star Fleet academy
Great. Star Trek: 90210
Roddenberry should get some of the blame (Score:5, Interesting)
This belief of his is also why Star Trek is chock full of evil madmen, but has few interesting large scale conflicts.
It was only as Roddenberry gave up control of the series that the show became more dramatic. Roddenberry was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of the Borg, and presumably he would have hated the way Deep Space Nine went once the Dominion War began.
I've always thought it would be great if there were a Federation Civil War. After all, the Federation appears to have an incredibly weak central government (that Prime Directive has actually been invoked to describe why the central government can't interfere with a member planet) and the Federation is spread over a large area, with only slow travel between the edges (apparently, it would take years to cross the Federation).
But because of Roddenberry's guiding principles, that'll probably never happen. "Enlightened people of the future will never fight each other."
Yawn.
Re:Roddenberry should get some of the blame (Score:5, Interesting)
Andromeda was originally intended to be a 'Star Trek: Fall of the Federation' series. Wasn't a bad series, until Kevin Sorbo turned it into Hercules In Space, firing that writer from DS9.
But an actual series dealing with the fall, rather than the results, would be good. Easy enough to do, too; two member factions get in a fight, the Federation Council tries to intervene, doesn't work, Starfleet is sent in to 'keep the peace,' there's an incident, the Vulcans walk in protest, people draw up sides, and the Federation turns, over the space of a few years, into, say, about six to ten separate groups.
The Federation: Earth, Andoria, and a few other 'core' members, they attempt to cling to the original tenents.
Vulcan, and others; view the Federation as a good idea ruined by bad species; they revert back to isolationism; not all Vulcans agree, though.
Antagonist A and Antagonist B, and assorted hangers-on; obviously, they're at war. One side invites in the Klingons to help out, the other side invites in the Romulans, and it all goes to pot.
Several other 'balkanized' areas which revert to sectoral or species lines, rejecting the Federation as being ultimately ineffective. Think League of Nations at this point. Others reject the Federation for trying at all to intercede, or blame the 'incident' on official Policy, rather than Shit Happens.
The next thing you know, some of these groups are attacking the core worlds, because they want Starfleet technology and knowledge that was withdrawn when they broke away from the Federation, there are old grudges flaring up, the Klingons and Romulans are nibbling at the edges, gleefully taking advantage of the Chaos, Starfleet are trying to maintain their principles and dignity while their ideals are collapsing around them, and so on.
Oh Happy Day! (Score:5, Insightful)
B5 (Score:4, Insightful)
If anyone can save Star Trek... (Score:5, Insightful)
change the reference (Score:5, Funny)
Holy shit, B5 always rocked ST (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't wait to see Straczynski take up a new ST series. He's one who can revive the ST franchise.
Crew chemistry to win fan-base (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do I have a feeling... (Score:5, Funny)
Str Trek:CSI
I really need to sell my TV.
Deja Vu? (Score:3, Informative)
let me try to remember (Score:5, Interesting)
Bab5 guy first went to Star Trek guys with the idea of Babylon 5. But they didn't accept the "space station" suggestion at that time, so Bab5 was born independently.
Later Star Trek guys came up with DS9. (no comments here)
Now, I wonder what will be different.
All teh world needs now is (Score:3, Interesting)
JMS doing trek (Score:5, Insightful)
It was funny because he said that before Voyager and Andromeda (which was originally a Trek series about the fall of the Federation as Rodenbury had pitched it) came out, and the good points of BOTH of those series were exactly that: getting away from the Federation and establishing their own stories. Woefully Voyager just entrenched itself in its own static mythos and Andromeda as plagued by execs that couldn't stand how dark it was.
Personally I don't see JMS being able to play ball with Paramount. I think he'd last 3-6 months tops before he blew up at them and walked. He's just not enough of a political animial (his detractors would say he's too much of one) to be able to put up with it.
JMS's tolerance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Babylon 5 was extraordinary for two reasons:
(1) An astronomically talented writer
(2) Said writer having complete creative control over the show
That is why Babylon 5 was able to be what it was: an utterly fantastic story stretched over five seasons. JMS himself has said that he had the general structure and philosophy of the story laid down from day one.
I don't see item #2 having a hell's chance of survival at Paramount, do you?
Re:JMS doing trek (Score:5, Informative)
* He was asked to EP Enterprise, but turned it down
* He is accepting an EP role on *something*
* He's going to be in the UK for a while
* It's not Dr. Who
Those last 3 are all of a set. My theory is that JMS doesn't get this excited about anything from the UK more than Prisoner and Blake's 7... if it's not something new, it just has to be one of those.
Personally, I just want more Supreme Power, Rising Stars and Amazing Spider Man out of him. Those have been amazingly good (though Spider Man slipped into a sort of slow patch for a bit in the middle). I don't need the big screen or tee-vee, in fact I think JMS does better in comics.
Can we finally have a Star Trek topic icon now? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest either a picture of the Original TOS Enterprise (NCC-1701 without any suffix) flying towards the user or a Starfleet Emblem.
You know it makes sense!
Icon. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can we finally have a Star Trek topic icon now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Trek with a Plot??? (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean he'll solve that pesky "The universe resets at the end of every episode" bug?
And will be get the "Non-trivial character development" patch?
Cool.
My lord, this would be cool. A Trek Series with a plot.
We haven't seen that in ages.
Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Premise (Score:4, Funny)
Finally! Someone with skill (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is with the writing, not the franchise. Its just not interesting anymore - and this latest travesty (Enterprise) is just adding insult to injury. Blue alien nazis? Someone get these clowns outta here
Re:Finally! Someone with skill (Score:5, Interesting)
What's wrong with that? Many people have written that Hitler claimed that he himself was receiving orders from "The Old Ones." And then we have the social anomaly with the Third Reich. Many people speculate that such totalitarian societies should not produce such brilliant scientific breakthroughs (in terms of weaponry for them) as the Nazis did. Look at their helmets from that era and then look at what the US military uses today. Look at the B2 and look back to the Nazi flying wing designs. The Panzer tanks, the V1 and V2 rockets, jet fighters, saucer designed aircraft, and the atom bomb they would've had if their own scientific team didn't sabotage the results. Then you have Hitler's (and many other Nazis) obsession with the occult. So that leads to much speculation for a writer with imagination, with or without a tin foil hat.
Somebody needed to pitch it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Somebody needed to pitch it.
It's been really stinking up the place for a while.
(I actually watched the last half of the "Search for Spock" movie last night. Man, that dog did not improve with age -- not to mention that Bones and Scotty looked pretty aged when it first came out.)
Star Trek is a Sci-Fi Soap (Score:3, Interesting)
Most episodes were a simple science fiction idea, combined with lots of character interaction and development.
Good characters made people identify and stick around.
An interesting idea, or bit of action would get people to pay attention and potentially buy in.
DS9 payed too much attention to the characters and lacked the variety of different ideas.
Voyager I thought did a pretty good job moving back to ideas and characters.
Enterprise I don't know, kinda stopped watching TV, this whole "grown up" life thing gets in the way a lot.
It looks like Trek may be fixed yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
Rick Berman can't do it. He's proven it. Trek started heading downhill once Michael Piller quit running the show. Bringing in some new blood can only help.
I'd like to see a JMS-run Trek. If the powers that be stand back and let him run the show, or, heck, anybody with a track record better than Berman's, things will get better.
That said, there's something about Enterprise. I still watch it, and I'm still not sure why...
-JDF
I watched..."The Cooler" last night... (Score:3, Insightful)
"...Nostalgia belongs in a museum...and you have to decide if you're running a museum, or you're running a Casino..."
Star Trek with Captain Kirk was new original and fun. Star Trek with Captain Picard was a great remake of the original. Star Trek Deep Space Nine seemed like the UPN-Space-Ghetto show and not so much of a Star Trek...Star Trek Voyager had an interesting premise, but the characters seemed to fall apart with me giving barely a rats ass if anything bad would have happened to them. Star Trek Enterprise is again a remake, but done in an original way much like Generations, but prequils don't hold my interest nearly enough as (good) sequels.
I think we've done enough with Star Trek and i'd rather see the creativeness go somewhere else. I liked a lot of the ideas behind shows like Babylon5, Farscape and (very very little) of Lexx. But the calibur of acting and dialogue wasn't always there. Stargate seems to be the only sci-fi show of this era that really impresses and I think has the ability to continue for a while, but we'll see, they have a new spin off coming along and it could totally suck without Macgyver.
Star Trek need more what? (Score:5, Funny)
If there's a problem ... (Score:5, Interesting)
How many stories are there, really, that will fit into a one-hour TV slot? The universe may or may not be finite, but plot possibilities certainly are.
Which is why new shows seem like such dreadful, bloodless retreads of old ones. We've seen all the characters and pretty much every idea you could ever squeeze onto the deck of a starship.
There's nothing really *wrong* with ST. It's just played-out.
If ST could learn one thing from Babylon 5, it would be plot and character development. In the original series, the fact that Kirk and the others were flying through space was somewhat incidental. We might have enjoyed it just as much if the same actors had been set in a western.
Perhaps ST could move toward the sort of long-term plot arcs we saw in Babylon 5, and have come to expect from series like the Sopranos. Freed from the format of episodic drama -- and the crushing weight of our expectations -- Star Trek might be free to again explore the Undiscovered Country.
That would be kinda nice.
Just the fans (Score:5, Insightful)
Proof:
Disney turned down Lord of the Rings
Sony turned down Everquest
Electronic Arts tried to cancel the Sims three times
MGM turned down Gone with the Wind
Now, if they don't mind spending $10,000 a day from the moment they make the first phone call, great. Otherwise, find a way to do it without conference rooms, or it's going to be nothing but anguish.
Story ideas! (Score:3, Funny)
Best idea for a new Star Trek. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just don't let Fox have the rights to air it.
BORG Species 000 (Score:5, Interesting)
Nick Powers
Benny (Score:5, Funny)
Prequels (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking the fact that it came after 3 concurrent sequels into account, a new prequel would have been better if it didn't actively follow the formation of the Federation. How awesome would a series about the rise of the Klingons or the Romulans be? There's so much there that's never been explained and it would be DIFFERENT. The whole feel of a Klingon or Romulan show would peak new interest because we'd see the Federation from a different light. That would be fresh, that would be new.
Garfield (Score:5, Insightful)
ST has become fashionable to hate. It used to be just a geek thing but now even geeks are trying to be hip by saying they don't like it.
If you look at the recent ST series I think the fault is that they tried to be too popular. Instead of aiming at their main audience they tried to broaden it and managed to loose both their old audience and not aquire a new one.
ST:TNG was too softly and soapy (it even had the evil twin sister kinda stuff), Deep Space 9 became a true soap, going away from the 1 hour episodes into an neverending story with returning cast members. Dynasty in space. Voyager never stopped whining. Enterprise is so bad I didn't even watch past ep3. And I am very forgiving to ST.
Any new series needs to go back to the roots. 1 hour episodes of a small crew exploring the universe. No whining, no soul searching. Just doing things. Focus on the old fans, they kept the franchise going for decades, we are ready to be milked more. Just don't insult us anymore.
Oh and shoot the person that came up with the holochamber idea. These guys are out exploring space and the best they can do for excitement is do fantasy games indoors? Losers.
I dunno about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, JMS wrote nearly all of b5. And that was in fact one of the things that I felt worked to its detriment. The wrtier's flaws quickly become the show's flaws, and that's one of the things killing trek right now.
B5 was awseome. (Score:4, Insightful)
I encourage everyone to buy the DVD boxed sets to support this man, so he keeps coming up with great scifi stories.
Question (Score:4, Funny)
Two birds with one stone. (Score:4, Funny)
Star Trek: Law & Order. Coming this fall.
Why B5 is cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Babylon 5 is an absolutely amazing piece of science fiction but only when you realize that the 5 seasons are really one 80-hour long movie.
When I saw it aired on TV, I thought it was contrived because I didn't understand all the constant references to prophecies, councils, past wars, Valen, etc. I thought that they were doing what Star Trek writers do - reference cool sounding things just to enhance the illusion of the future, but those things are not existant in the actual plot. B5 is completely different; almost all their references are to cool stories in other episodes (both forward and backward) including some mind-blowing plot twists (some that make you giggle when you watch earlier season episodes because you know some *huge* secrets revealed later). It's important to realize that the B5 plot was fully written before filming, something that Star Trek never benefited from.
My roommate got the DVDs for all the seasons and we started watching them one by one. I'm a few episodes from finishing the last season. B5 is a trememdous story, not just out of science fiction, but of any type of story I've ever watched or read. It's one of those real works of art you only see once every few years. Of course I take issue with some scientific points, like their premise of the "first ones" (first race in the galaxy) living for indefinite lifetimes and such, but they are just quibbles.
It's also worth noting that besides the brilliant story weaving, B5 also fantastically avoided the concept of "good guys" and "bad guys". I'm impressed to no end how they side-stepped that oh-so-common trapping and actually made several alien races really come to life with politics, emotions, and goals of their own. Very cool.
The third great thing about B5 is that the problems are solved with character solutions. The tech is there to enhance the experience, but unlike Star Trek where they can reconfigure the primary deflector to do the dishes and take out the dog, in B5 they actually work out the problems using more traditional methods, and the interesting tech is for there for the viewer's enjoyment as backdrop, not primary focus.
If you're a Star Trek fan but have never watched B5, do yourself a favor and start with Season 1 [amazon.com]. Watch them in order, and P.S. there is an extra prequel movie, but don't watch it until after you get into Season 5 because it gives a few things from the middle away.
It makes me curious as to how they'd give Star Trek the B5 treatment, but I'd have to guess that the first step would be to write out a cohesive plot that can cover the first few years of the show before they start filming.
Two out of Three ain't Bad, I guess... (Score:4, Interesting)
As much as I like Michael Straczynski, having great ideas for a Trek series isn't hard when you have such a rich universe to build upon. Heck, Enterprise was a great idea, which only goes to prove that your great idea is only the tip of the iceburg. It's all about execution, something Enterprise crashed and burned in. And quite frankly, while b5 was good, Jeremiah and Odyssey 5 were steaming piles last I checked [IMO, of course]. That's not a bulletproof track record and I'm not convinced he could pull it off any better, honestly.
But after space-nazies, I'd be willing to give anything a try.
Roots... (Score:4, Interesting)
Straczynski could do it, but will Paramount? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's ironic, though. When Joe first came up with Babylon 5, he pitched it to Paramount. Paramount turned thumbs down on it. Joe pitched elsewhere. What does Paramount come up with next? Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show about a space station located on the borders of several competing interstellar powers. Coincidence?
Joe reportdly hit the roof, but was careful *not* to blame Rick Berman and the other folks directly involved in ST production. Paramount wished to protect the Trek franchise at all costs, and wasn't about to compete with itself by backing a non-Trek SF show. Whether it decided to sucker punch a possible competitor by bringing out the same idea first remains unknowable.
The problem is that Paramount got a successful franchise largely by accident. Star Trek: TOS was originally cancelled part way through, and brought back through fan pressure. It seems likely that Paramount never really understood *why* it was popular, so successive Star Trek: Whatever's have trod the same old ground, in apparent fear that any actual new ideas would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Personally, I was around when the original series was being aired. It was the best SF on TV at the time, but hasn't aged terribly well.
ST:TNG had some good moments, especially when it worked through the backlog of unproduced scripts bought for the original series and started buying new material. There was at least some attempt to deal with adult themes, even if there were embarassing clunkers.
DS9 had moments as well, especially when they introduced the war with the Dominion. Trek always had a schizophrenic attitude toward Star Fleet. Pointing out that the Enterprise was a capital ship, and if there *was* a war, Star Fleet would fight it produced hand-waving and denial from a lot of folks.
Voyager was simply excreble. I think I managed to watch one episode before giving up in disgust.
I had hopes for Enterprise. A show set early in the chronolgy of the series, detailing the early days of the Federation had promise. Promise that, unsurprisingly, has not been fulfilled. I've avoided it, too.
I have a problem with television that makes an implicit assumption that I'm dumb, and that any show with a few SF tropes and some FX will get me to watch. Dramatic story lines, meaningful characters, interesting plots, good writing? Who needs them? It's got the Trek name on it. It will sell...
Well, not to me, buddy.
Joe might actually be able to create a Trek series worth watching again. I'd love to see it. I'd lay long odds against Paramount saying yes.
______
Dennis