14 thoughts on “Rebooting Star Trek For The Small Screen”
There is a Facebook based campaign to bring “Enterprise” back for a 5th season on Netflix. It supposedly has at least some backing from CBS.
Meh. I remember when TOS first aired, I’m almost certainly not their target audience. But, of course, I still have opinions.
I think if they’re going to start up a new series that they need to get their technology and their economics and their technology straight from the start. Star Trek as it stands has so much baggage that it would be almost impossible to cram a new series into the franchise–they’d have to blow off 90% of the canon, which is going to piss off most of their base audience. Going back to the early days was an interesting idea, but Enterprise has ruined that now.
It’s too bad that they can’t just junk Star Trek and start something new. Maybe more along Poul Anderson’s Polesotechnic League around Falkayn’s time–small FTL exploratory vessels. D. C. Fontana had a proposal something like that.
No time travel.
FTL implies time travel.
FTL implies time travel.
Not in either the fictional Star Trek universe or in the real universe the rest of us live.
Not if there’s a preferred reference frame. It is possible to come up with FTL schemes with no preferred reference frames that don’t imply time travel, but preferred reference frames are easy and intuitive.
There’s so much better television that could be made.
I’m reading the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. Turning that into a tv series would be better than another Marxist paradise with warp-drives and transporters.
.. and, ya know, people might actually watch it.
The “Heorot” universe from Niven/Pournelle/Barnes. Lots of stories to tell on Avalon. No time travel. No gimmicky technology or particle-of-the-week BS. No help from outside. No aliens-who-are-exactly-like-a-particular-human-group-except-for-forehead-bumps. No requirement to include at minimum seven items from TV Tropes in every episode. No preachy politics or unsubtle Deeper Meanings™. No Marxist fantasy-land economics substituting for an exploration of the realistic consequences of replicator-based plenty, but rather the fascinating practical economics of a bootstrapping colony world. Actual exploration of an unknown world, driven both by science and resource needs, versus warp-driven tourism masquerading as science, whose goals for all we can tell are of purely academic value.
Oh, and sentient crocodiles on speed.
This should have been a reply to Trent…
If they’re go bring back a sci fi tv series, it should be Firefly.
The Expanse series is very firefly-like, but it’s set in our solar system, not some fictional distant one.
Niven’s Known Space would make a good backdrop for a TV series; of course the CGI budget might be a bit high. I’m also unsure as to which particular era would be best. Perhaps the Man/Kzin Wars would make a good subject?
And what happened to the proposed Ringworld movie? Though, in truth, Hollywood would almost certainly butcher it. Or any other era, perhaps; it would be a little difficult to shoehorn in the obligatory vehicle chase and gunfight when teleportation is routine and the guns have been banned for a century.
The Chironian’s “economics” in James Hogan’s Voyage from Yesteryear could be a model for Federation economics and society. But better yet, turn Voyage from Yesteryear into a mini series.
Leaving aside other science fiction options (like a series set in The Caves of Steel universe, which I think would work well in television), Star Trek, when it returns, should do one thing–not center the next series on Starfleet. That’s the one common element. It doesn’t necessarily have to be dark and gritty, but why must the series (plural) all be from the military perspective? Not that I don’t like the ones that did (leaving aside all of Voyager and most of Enterprise), but something new would be nice.
There’s a bit of contention about whether Starfleet was military. I think the evidence is overwhelming that it was, but Roddenberry (and he should know) said it wasn’t.
Star Trek was pitched as a combination of Wagon Train and Hornblower in Space–it makes a fair amount of sense that Starfleet was military, although there’s plenty of stuff around the edges that didn’t have to be. Making starships private raises its own set of problems–a starship has enough firepower to devastate a subcontinent (I’m not talking phasers and photon torpedoes, but the antimatter in the engine nacelles). Transporters evidently can’t be completely shielded, which means that a person with access to a transporter can steal or kidnap or kill pretty much at a whim. Replicators and holodecks have too many problems to list here. These could all be fixed, of course, but it’s kind of annoying that they have to be. Why not start over with a new show and make new mistakes, rather than plastering over the old ones?
There is a Facebook based campaign to bring “Enterprise” back for a 5th season on Netflix. It supposedly has at least some backing from CBS.
Meh. I remember when TOS first aired, I’m almost certainly not their target audience. But, of course, I still have opinions.
I think if they’re going to start up a new series that they need to get their technology and their economics and their technology straight from the start. Star Trek as it stands has so much baggage that it would be almost impossible to cram a new series into the franchise–they’d have to blow off 90% of the canon, which is going to piss off most of their base audience. Going back to the early days was an interesting idea, but Enterprise has ruined that now.
It’s too bad that they can’t just junk Star Trek and start something new. Maybe more along Poul Anderson’s Polesotechnic League around Falkayn’s time–small FTL exploratory vessels. D. C. Fontana had a proposal something like that.
No time travel.
FTL implies time travel.
FTL implies time travel.
Not in either the fictional Star Trek universe or in the real universe the rest of us live.
Not if there’s a preferred reference frame. It is possible to come up with FTL schemes with no preferred reference frames that don’t imply time travel, but preferred reference frames are easy and intuitive.
There’s so much better television that could be made.
I’m reading the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. Turning that into a tv series would be better than another Marxist paradise with warp-drives and transporters.
.. and, ya know, people might actually watch it.
The “Heorot” universe from Niven/Pournelle/Barnes. Lots of stories to tell on Avalon. No time travel. No gimmicky technology or particle-of-the-week BS. No help from outside. No aliens-who-are-exactly-like-a-particular-human-group-except-for-forehead-bumps. No requirement to include at minimum seven items from TV Tropes in every episode. No preachy politics or unsubtle Deeper Meanings™. No Marxist fantasy-land economics substituting for an exploration of the realistic consequences of replicator-based plenty, but rather the fascinating practical economics of a bootstrapping colony world. Actual exploration of an unknown world, driven both by science and resource needs, versus warp-driven tourism masquerading as science, whose goals for all we can tell are of purely academic value.
Oh, and sentient crocodiles on speed.
This should have been a reply to Trent…
If they’re go bring back a sci fi tv series, it should be Firefly.
The Expanse series is very firefly-like, but it’s set in our solar system, not some fictional distant one.
Niven’s Known Space would make a good backdrop for a TV series; of course the CGI budget might be a bit high. I’m also unsure as to which particular era would be best. Perhaps the Man/Kzin Wars would make a good subject?
And what happened to the proposed Ringworld movie? Though, in truth, Hollywood would almost certainly butcher it. Or any other era, perhaps; it would be a little difficult to shoehorn in the obligatory vehicle chase and gunfight when teleportation is routine and the guns have been banned for a century.
The Chironian’s “economics” in James Hogan’s Voyage from Yesteryear could be a model for Federation economics and society. But better yet, turn Voyage from Yesteryear into a mini series.
Leaving aside other science fiction options (like a series set in The Caves of Steel universe, which I think would work well in television), Star Trek, when it returns, should do one thing–not center the next series on Starfleet. That’s the one common element. It doesn’t necessarily have to be dark and gritty, but why must the series (plural) all be from the military perspective? Not that I don’t like the ones that did (leaving aside all of Voyager and most of Enterprise), but something new would be nice.
There’s a bit of contention about whether Starfleet was military. I think the evidence is overwhelming that it was, but Roddenberry (and he should know) said it wasn’t.
Star Trek was pitched as a combination of Wagon Train and Hornblower in Space–it makes a fair amount of sense that Starfleet was military, although there’s plenty of stuff around the edges that didn’t have to be. Making starships private raises its own set of problems–a starship has enough firepower to devastate a subcontinent (I’m not talking phasers and photon torpedoes, but the antimatter in the engine nacelles). Transporters evidently can’t be completely shielded, which means that a person with access to a transporter can steal or kidnap or kill pretty much at a whim. Replicators and holodecks have too many problems to list here. These could all be fixed, of course, but it’s kind of annoying that they have to be. Why not start over with a new show and make new mistakes, rather than plastering over the old ones?