Future of Star Trek

nyarlothothep

I was just thinking, I've recently just started watching Battlestar Galactica, the newer version, I'm halfway through season 2 and tbh it basically highlights all the problems with Trek in being so good. I can't believe I resisted watching this show for over ten years with silly preconceived ideas, I believe I would have liked it even then if I had given it a chance, which I didn't, now I evangelise about it to all my friends. Anyway, the problems it highlights are manifold, 1. The Trek universe is like the Elder Scrolls universe, essentially cookie cutter, 99% of alien species are generic, mono cultural, just blah really, the crew quarters look barely inhabited, no one listens to rock music, nearly everyone wants to join starfleet etc, the universe is just bland, 2. There aren't really any consequences, true Picard was changed by his experience with the Borg, this is good, but rebuilding the fleet in a year was ridiculous, and Voyager basically sh1ts all over the concept of consequences, it never sustained any significant damage. DS9 was definitely going in the right direction but I felt it was hampered by being tied to the demands to the trek universe; even though it was meant to be gritty it felt far from it, just stylistically I guess. I also thought that it was held back by budget, some of the battles could have been larger, instead we got skirmishes between a few feds and a few Jem Hadar. Another issue, battles in Trek are kind of boring and take place on a 2D plane, in BSG they're fcking awesome, you can literally feel the tension and danger of the situations they're in, the vipers look so cool, like formula 1 cars with wings, nukes and guns. The music is also epic in these sequences, you're right there in the cockpit and the sounds coming from inside the ships rather than from outside in space, it's just brilliant.

Now I know this is a military based sci fi show but I think Trek could adopt this. Along with some other ideas, like not have squeeky clean, perfect crews, not having pointless episodes with strained comedy as with Enterprise, abandoning the very idea of time travel altogether, (the time travel episodes with some exceptions are diabolical, the temporal cold war was an idea that should have been shot down in the writer's room just for the title alone), and the universe should be much more diverse and less homogenous and **** should hit the fan, this is what BSG does so well. I've noticed that before the really good episodes you have ones which deal with internal disputes within the fleet, now they're not necessarily all that good, there are a few dud episodes so far, but what the show does try to do is make the narrative dynamic, there are conflicts, things don't get brushed aside so we can move on mechanically to the next plot point, as with Voyager and the Maquis. Don't get me wrong, TOS and TNG are masterpieces of sci fi and DS9 is a great show that tried to take Trek in a new direction but Voy and Ent were really awful, cheap, mediocre shows that were the epitome of banality, the former going on for far too long (it felt almost obsessive compulsive in terms of length, 7 seasons with 20 plus episodes must mean we have made a good show). For a new Trek series I think it would be great to combine the philosophical/humanist bent of TNG with the realism, fast paced badassery and character depth of BSG. Furthermore, there doesn't need to be 20 episodes, 10 very high quality episodes is more than enough for each season, there should be absolutely no filler (I know season 2 of BSG has 20 episodes although Season 1 had just 14). Also Commander Adama is way more badass than any Trek captain. The new Trek captain should drink whiskey and get into fist fights and should have a fckload of gravitas, and you need an actor like Edward James Olmos for this, or Patrick Stewart, but not a generic/safe/decided by committee actor.

PS, please no BSG spoilers, I'm still marvelling at its greatness as I work my way through the second season, it's more addictive than crack.

Cookie_Monster

nyarlothothep wrote: »

PS, please no BSG spoilers, I'm still marvelling at its greatness as I work my way through the second season, it's more addictive than crack.

Spoiler but no plot details at all (just in case)

It's like the reverse of most Trek series that start off poor and finish epically.
BGS was great but the early ones were vastly superior, it gets pretty off the wall later on.

Skerries

the epic space battles they have in BSG were the next step up from Babyon 5 meanwhile Trek stuck to it's battle roots of every ship being on the same plane and exchanging blows like capital ships when they should have been more manoeuvrable

helimachoptor

Agreed, even the fleet engagements for the dominion war were poor given what they could have been.

Basically a defiant and a couple of other smaller ships (until they get destroyed) being mobile, then the Galaxy, excelsiors etc just lumbering in.

When the Klingons came in from the Z axis it was great

_Kaiser_

For me BSG only really started to come together

with the discovery of the Pegasus and the episodes immediately after that (OP, make sure you also watch the Razor movie/feature as it gives a good back story to Cain and her crew's first year of the war.)

Music was epic too... particularly in this scene which is just fantastic - CONTAINS SPOILERS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q6MsCu6Y7U

Trek does seem pretty sterile and bland by comparison alright. ENT was pretty much a total loss save for some episodes in the 4th season. DS9 was probably the closest in feeling to BSG but as mentioned above was still constrained by the rules of the franchise.

Kiith

BSG spoiler (season 2) -

Adama's conversaion with Kane in that episode was one of my favourite BSG moments ever. Absolutely bad ass - "You can quote me any regulation your want...I'm getting my men!"

. Voyager could have taken even a fraction of that and been so much better. It's utterly stupid that there was no lasting damage to the ship, given how often things seemed explode.

As for the future of Trek, i'd say we'll be waiting at least a decade till we get anything, and i've a bad feeling that it'd be more Trek 2009 than TNG/DS9 etc...

Myrddin

Kiith wrote: »

As for the future of Trek, i'd say we'll be waiting at least a decade till we get anything, and i've a bad feeling that it'd be more Trek 2009 than TNG/DS9 etc...

I'd be inclined to agree. I reckon Star Trek as we know/love it, is dead. TV has evolved, & the bar has been raised in such a way that the traditional Star Trek model seems an incompatible fit these days.

Greyjoy

Kiith wrote: »

It's utterly stupid that there was no lasting damage to the ship, given how often things seemed explode.

The idea of the ship needing repairs/diminishing resources was something that Ron Moore took over to BSG from his time working as a writer on Voyager: Ron Moore interview I loved BSG but I don't know if a military theme would suit a new Trek. Wouldn't it just feel like the new Trek was copying BSG and not have an identity of its own?

i'd agree that we're unlikely to see another Trek series for some time (and even then it's probably going to be a spin-off from the new Abrams reboot). My own preference for a new series would be for a ship & crew outside of starfleet (but definitely not some covert Section 31 or black ops 'renegades'). Have them encounter problems & threats without the 'safety net' of Starfleet behind them.

Kiith

A series dedicated to exploration would be great. Throw up another wormhole, send through a few thousand colonists (Klingon, Romulan, Starfleet etc...) and a few Starships and colony ships and shut the wormhole. Bad things happen, life is hard, enemies abound.

Basically, Firefly in the Trek universe :P

_Kaiser_

Kiith wrote: »

BSG spoiler (season 2) -

Adama's conversaion with Kane in that episode was one of my favourite BSG moments ever. Absolutely bad ass - "You can quote me any regulation your want...I'm getting my men!"

Fantastic stuff alright..

the look on the Pegasus weapons officer's and Fisk's face when Adama hangs up is priceless (in the context of having witnessed Cain's treatment of the civilian fleet she found previously).. it's like "oh shyt.. here we go again!"

Closest we had to that in Trek I guess was VOY's "Year of Hell" which unfortunately took the cheap reset button way out in the end.

degrassinoel

I think that's why i liked BSG and the year of hell episode in voyager - the ships took a massive beating by the end of it all

have to admit, i shed a manly tear (BSG SPOILER >

when Galactica sailed off into the sun

helimachoptor

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Closest we had to that in Trek I guess was VOY's "Year of Hell" which unfortunately took the cheap reset button way out in the end.

Agreed, for me, year of hell should have been the state of voyager getting home, absolutely in bits but as has been said.. reset button

Kirby

It's not that easy to do though. You have tons of stock shots of the ship that every episode uses. Damaging the ship and then having to redo all the CGI shots is expensive.

Galactica was an old ship and looked banged up in the pilot......they didnt have to do a lot to make it look worn. :P

Zillah

Kirby wrote: »

It's not that easy to do though. You have tons of stock shots of the ship that every episode uses. Damaging the ship and then having to redo all the CGI shots is expensive.

Less episodes per season would help with this. Also CGI is much cheaper now than in Voyager's days.

Personally I don't think Star Trek should try a darker, grittier show. That's just not what Star Trek is. It was conceived and has always been a romantic space opera, where wonderful and silly things happen. The bad guys were basically super villains: Khan, Soren, Chang - larger than life antagonists with grand and absurd plans.

It is also supposed to be an idealised future: no money, no poverty, no internal strife, magical technology.

You can do a dark and gritty Star Trek that has none of the qualities that makes Trek Trek but then why call it Star Trek at all?

The one thing that I definitely feel they should get rid off is the Simpsons style reset at the end of every episode. Story arcs are good, like we saw in DS9.

Kidchameleon

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Furthermore, there doesn't need to be 20 episodes, 10 very high quality episodes is more than enough for each season, there should be absolutely no filler (I know season 2 of BSG has 20 episodes although Season 1 had just 14)

Season 4 and 4.5 are absolute s-h-i-t-e

AMKC

I watched the new BSG when it was on and loved it. It is a great show for what it is about. Which is a group of survivors trying to avoid being wiped out by intelligent robots that they created and finding a new home. This one is a lot more complex than the original version do and also has lots of twists and turns and great storys. The special effects were nothing special do that was the biggest disapointment for me. There should have been lasers the original had lasers.

I would not call the Trek universe boring. Each planet was unique with its own unique culture ie Romulans,Klingons,Ferengi. Ye ok maybe they could have done with more weird species like Tholians or the Gorn. But they cost more to do and budgets back then even for The Next Generation was not that big.
I liked the space battles in DS9 dont think they are boring yes they are a bit 2d but they done what they could with the budget they had. There is some great battles in it.

I like Trek the way it is its a vision of what mankind might one day become if we all work together and for the good of humanity not for our own self interests or for greed or power.
I don,t think a captain that drank whiskey and got into fist fights would be a good example for his crew. Even Scotty only drank when he was of duty.
The captain is responsible for his ship and crew and if he was to be drunk and something happened while he was in charge I don,t think he would be a captain for very long whether he be in Starfleet or in charge of a civilian ship. Even today in the world we live would you go on a ship or a plane if the Captain in charge was drunk and you knew? I know what Id be doing.
I thought Enterprise did a good job of making the crew more like us more unsure, that they were only finding there feet in space after all as they were the first warp 5 ship. There is a lot less technobabble in it too. I think it deserved and should have got a 5th season.
Have you seen Babylon 5 is very good too. I would say you would like if if you have not. Its a less perfect Universe than Star Trek and there is some very interesting and mysterious aliens in it.

Manach

I personally like BSG all the way through and the true star of the show was always the last of battlestars. However, this type of grittiness only seems to come with lssing a war and from setbacks from which there is no coming back from. Hence this would never be part of the "Future is wonderful" ethos that pervades much of Star Trek. Where the writers slipped the lease to explore a more grey on grey universe, in the excellent DS9 "In the pale Moonlight". Garak would have been so at home on BSG.

Myrddin

Manach wrote: »

I personally like BSG all the way through and the true star of the show was always the last of battlestars. However, this type of grittiness only seems to come with lssing a war and from setbacks from which there is no coming back from. Hence this would never be part of the "Future is wonderful" ethos that pervades much of Star Trek.

Voyager was their opportunity to do something different, apart from the safety of the alpha quadrant, alone & with many setbacks etc...but no, they chose the safe option & I'd argue that's what killed Star Trek (Not Enterprise, but Voyager).

Zillah

Myrddin wrote: »

Voyager was their opportunity to do something different, apart from the safety of the alpha quadrant, alone & with many setbacks etc...but no, they chose the safe option & I'd argue that's what killed Star Trek (Not Enterprise, but Voyager).

Nah it was Enterprise. Voyager was far from perfect but Enterprise is what killed it.

Myrddin

Zillah wrote: »

Nah it was Enterprise. Voyager was far from perfect but Enterprise is what killed it.

Voyager wouldn't have got past two seasons today, look at Stargate Universe to see how tight things have gotten. I agree Enterprise was the wrong direction to go in overall, but 7 seasons of reset button pressing (Voyager) is what really allowed for Enterprise to happen in the first place. Instead of broadening horizons, & taking Trek in a new direction while maintaining its core principles, all they did was make the Delta Quadrant the same as the Alpha Quadrant. There was no sense of a ship, lost & alone. Had it have been done correctly, instead of Enterprise, we could have gotten a new series that involved the first colonization attempts of the Delta Quadrant, post Voyager etc. New frontier stuff, like what DS9 done. Ent should never have happened (though in all honesty I enjoyed ENT), but for me Voy is where the real damage was done.

Greyjoy

Here's a Guardian article with quotes from a Radio Times interview with Simon Pegg. He complains that sci-fi films are 'dumbing down' modern cinema while in the next breath talking about writing the script for the new Trek movie. Simon Pegg criticises ‘dumbing down’ of cinema

They had a script for Star Trek that wasn’t really working for them. I think the studio was worried that it might have been a little bit too Star Trek-y,” he said of the original draft.

Aaaaaand that's why I now have zero interest in the next Trek film.

AMKC

He also gives a hint that the title for the next film is going to be called "Star Trek Beyond"
Maybe with Pegg writing it there might be a bit of hope that it might be decent and better than the last two.

nyarlothothep

AMKC wrote: »

I watched the new BSG when it was on and loved it. It is a great show for what it is about. Which is a group of survivors trying to avoid being wiped out by intelligent robots that they created and finding a new home. This one is a lot more complex than the original version do and also has lots of twists and turns and great storys. The special effects were nothing special do that was the biggest disapointment for me. There should have been lasers the original had lasers.

I would not call the Trek universe boring. Each planet was unique with its own unique culture ie Romulans,Klingons,Ferengi. Ye ok maybe they could have done with more weird species like Tholians or the Gorn. But they cost more to do and budgets back then even for The Next Generation was not that big.
I liked the space battles in DS9 dont think they are boring yes they are a bit 2d but they done what they could with the budget they had. There is some great battles in it.

I like Trek the way it is its a vision of what mankind might one day become if we all work together and for the good of humanity not for our own self interests or for greed or power.
I don,t think a captain that drank whiskey and got into fist fights would be a good example for his crew. Even Scotty only drank when he was of duty.
The captain is responsible for his ship and crew and if he was to be drunk and something happened while he was in charge I don,t think he would be a captain for very long whether he be in Starfleet or in charge of a civilian ship. Even today in the world we live would you go on a ship or a plane if the Captain in charge was drunk and you knew? I know what Id be doing.
I thought Enterprise did a good job of making the crew more like us more unsure, that they were only finding there feet in space after all as they were the first warp 5 ship. There is a lot less technobabble in it too. I think it deserved and should have got a 5th season.
Have you seen Babylon 5 is very good too. I would say you would like if if you have not. Its a less perfect Universe than Star Trek and there is some very interesting and mysterious aliens in it.

I didn't mean that the captain should be a drunk but that he should be human/imperfect. Janeway et al were too clean cut, I mean Sisko wasn't and Picard gets a pass as he was essentially a philosopher/high officer who wouldn't fraternise with his crew anyway. I agree with Myrridin that Voy really killed Star Trek. It was kind of offensive that Picard was taking orders from Janeway in the last TNG film. And why did it get to 7 seasons? It felt like it was being propped up and forced on the audience, it was mostly emblemmatic of the worst aspects of tv, utterly lacking in drama, imagination, bland, safe, ultimately dull. And Janeway's command decisions were idiotic, either completely unethical or involving brute force rather than intelligence and she was always portrayed as right without question, the reset button was employed relentlessly and the ship never took damage. The show is a 90s relic that should be banished to the dustbin of history. Ent was just a mess but Voy ruined everything good about trek, in a way the TNG universe it destroyed shouldn't be returned to, it's been fully explored.

I think that while Star Trek doesn't have to be BSG, I think this utopian future idea is a bit...well it doesn't really lend itself to drama if everything is perfect. Star Trek is also about exploration so they could develop that angle. A new trek series could benefit from taking the lead from a film like Interstellar, basically space travel should be portrayed difficult, dangerous, but rewarding with awe inspiring discoveries. When things go wrong they shouldn't be reset with technobabble magic solutions, ships should get damaged and not get fixed, no we'll have the fleet built back up in a year. It should have that same depth and dramatic tension, it must eschew the we're all so happy and smug setting of Voy, TNG had this too but succeeded because the stories and themes were so good and also it was from a different era.

Indricotherium

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I think that while Star Trek doesn't have to be BSG, I think this utopian future idea is a bit...well it doesn't really lend itself to drama if everything is perfect. .

I think that TNG and DS9 revealed that the utopian society the federation is chasing is very skin deep.

Both Data and Worf storylines have shown that racism and predjudice are alive and well in the federation.

Data, Worf and Nog were victims of persistant bullying in Starfleet academy.

Episodes of DS9 which are told from a ferengi pov are often very revealing about the insidious nature of the federation.

Bashirs experiances with section 31, a secret police that operate deliberately outside the ideals that the federation espouses.

Looking in at the federation from the prism of Garak, quark, or Worfs pov reveals a deeply flawed nation.

Even in tng you have whiter than white officers like Picard and Riker taking part in deep undercover missions against foreign governments outside of the prime directive.

Plenty of mileage to explore in there I reckon.

Indricotherium

Actually,

Now that I think of it, there have been three Star Fleet led, attempted military coups in The Federation over the course of TNG and DS9!

That's 3 in what, 12 years????

Another in the Undiscovered Country!!!

That's 4 over the course of 70 years, that we even know about.

Hardly the idylic Utopia.

And the Federation has been in and out of a three way war with the Klingon Empire, and Cardassian Union, in a way that is reminiscent of George Orwells perpetual war in 1984.

The only Utopian nation that we see in Startrek, are the peace loving Romulans, who do their best to isolate themselves, and avoid the pan galactic conflicts the Federation constantly "finds itself" mired in. That is of course until they are dragged into such a conflict by, you guessed it, the Federation via a clandestine assination of a foriegn politician I might add.

Myrddin

Indricotherium wrote: »

The only Utopian nation that we see in Startrek, are the peace loving Romulans, who do their best to isolate themselves, and avoid the pan galactic conflicts the Federation constantly "finds itself" mired in. That is of course until they are dragged into such a conflict by, you guessed it, the Federation via a clandestine assination of a foriegn politician I might add.

Is this you? :P

Kirby

The romulans were insular and racist though.....with a superiority complex. Hardly Utopia.

Indricotherium

Kirby wrote: »

The romulans were insular and racist though.....with a superiority complex. Hardly Utopia.

look at the language federation citezens and officers use when talking about ferengi. It's disgusting.

it's quite open as well.

Myrddin

Indricotherium wrote: »

look at the language federation citezens and officers use when talking about ferengi. It's disgusting.

it's quite open as well.

Well, their entire culture is based upon personal gain at all costs, greed, and ruthless acquisition - not to mention their misogynistic and blatant discrimination towards women. Sure, there are a handful of notable exceptions we've seen, but on the whole, there isn't much to paint the Ferengi in a very positive light...

Kiith

I dunno...Dabo Girls :P

degrassinoel

i have to disagree, by the end of DS9 the resident regular Ferengi had proven themselves to be just as good and bad as their federation counterparts.

Quark's mother/moogie had effectively implemented womens rights and had been the brains behind the Grand Nagus for years. Proving that the female of the species is every bit as good and bad as the male.
Quark himself, though cunning and ruthless in his acquisition of profit had a heart of gold, which was proved over and over again, notably in 'The Magnificent Ferengi', and the episode where himself and Odo were stranded on some planet with little hope of surviving, Quark ultimately overcame his own survival instinct to save Odo.
Rom his brother had turned from a useless incompetent scheming background character into a respectable and intelligent engineer on DS9 - his son Nog had been the first Ferengi to join Starfleet and earned the admiration and respect of his colleagues, serving with distinction and being seriously injured defending his post in 'The Siege of AR-558'.

I see the Ferengi as we are now, deeply flawed but capable of being better people, much as the humans and other races of the federation have aspired to be in the Star Trek universe.

They are pretty much the comic relief that star trek needed, particularly in DS9. GN Zek was probably the best irregular character on the show, his laugh cracked me up every single time.. Quark's was hilarious too