Star Trek General Discussion

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Do a actual Eugenics war series.

Do not. Leave it vague and hard to pin down. This is like the Horus Heresy in Warhammer. Those books were terrific for a while but now that they're done
they've taken away so much mystique that characters and events had by expanding on them. Instead of giving future writers something they could continue to tease and use as a literary jumping off point, it has all been codified and established even going so far as to undo old stories.


Currently, they can keep it vague and #### with it to change points as necessary to keep it ahead of our modern times as to keep the real-world feel.

Once you do a show or story, you're locked in. Where as if you use the actual shows to take snap shots you can keep it moving around.

[Shazam]

I think the main issue is that doing another starship series set after TNG is next to impossible because they've run out of ideas. Doesn't help that the Federation is next to impossible to stop. Even the adapt-o-zombies lost to them.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Doesn't help that the Federation is next to impossible to stop. Even the adapt-o-zombies lost to them.

I think that's part of the issue with how people look at Star Trek now. The Federation in open conflict is okay. It's a fun thing to poke and prod around. That isn't what the Federation was supposed to be. It was supposed to be about finding peace. What make's Star Trek is that not everything is supposed to be about conflict. It should be about the Universe as a whole. Science. Anomalies. Political intrigue between allies and enemies. TNG had the Klingons as allies who no longer wanted or could no longer go toe-to-toe with the Federation and still managed to find ways to make them and their goings on interesting without making it as simple as the Federation vs The Empire. Even at the height of the Dominion War, DS9 was still cycling in science or intrigue.


The issue isn't that they've run out of ideas. The issue is they are focused on one type of story and it doesn't work for what Star Trek is about.

[direwolf]

After Picard, I was kinda hoping for a good old fashioned exploration/adventure type series following Captain Seven of Nine and her crew. There seemed to be a lot of potential there, but I guess that idea never took off.

[Ashartus]

I think whatever it is shouldn't be a prequel or tied to Discovery.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

I think whatever it is shouldn't be a prequel or tied to Discovery.

Yes. This.

New ship, new crew, new stories.

[SutterBrother]

Grab a child and start re-watching.

My 11 year old and I just hit season 3 of TNG and it's solid gold. He has such impending doom about the Borg...

As to what they should to with the franchise, I have a crazy idea.

Assemble a cast of 7 main characters. Put them on a ship. Have the ship explore the galaxy over a 26 episode season, mostly stand alone episodes perhaps with a couple short arcs. Run it for 5 years, see how it feels, if good do 2 more, then a major motion picture, and an open world video game.

Hire a show runner who has watched Star Trek at some point, and writers who aren't stupid.

All current Trek fans will give it a shot. The consistency will probably bring in new fans.

(dare to dream)

[KTrain]

If they're laser focused on making a movie, they're making a mistake.

I love the movies (even the Kelvin ones) but they only work because the primary audience had hundreds of hours of history to familiarize themselves with the characters they're seeing on the big screen.

[CaptainCrunch]

Right now, I would rather Trek goes on hiatus for a good chunk of time after Brave New World Ends. Let it rest,


Do a Mass Effect Series instead.

[SutterBrother]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Right now, I would rather Trek goes on hiatus for a good chunk of time after Brave New World Ends. Let it rest,


Do a Mass Effect Series instead.

That didn't work the last time. The beauty of Star Trek (vs mass Effect) is that it isn't about war... well isn't supposed to be about war.

Sigh. I guess after TNG it pretty much was always about war, wasn't it?

[Fuzz]

First they need to do a timeline reset that erases Discovery and everything from the reboot trash.


Then they can pop in a few hundred years after TNG with a fairly blank slate and try not to ever go back to meddling with #### in the past. Time travel episodes are fine, but the alternate timeline/universe stuff is so weak. Stay away. Tell some good stories without all the baggage. This shouldn't be that hard.

[Hemi-Cuda]

If they refuse to set a new series beyond the TNG timeline, then I wouldn't mind seeing something set between Enterprise and Brave New World. The USS Franklin in Beyond was a really cool looking ship, and there should be a ton of great stories they could tell from the Federation's early days

[Monahammer]

Yeah, I agree with the notion that the best thing to do would be to start a TV series 50-100 years post ST: Picard. Maybe it could be a voyager like ship that is exploring the next galaxy.

Importantly, it should have very little ties to existing characters, except maybe vague historical references.
It would be cool in this setting to meet a parallel federation and to develop a sort of techno cold war story line. Parallel to current day China/US tech trade war rather than historical US/Soviet cold war.
Also, stick to recognizable races on the starfleet ship. Maybe a half klingon. 1 or 2 vulcans. A bolian lower decker. A handful of bajorans. No need for female gem'hadar or rehabilitated changelings or whatever.

The movie, when the show has gone on for 4 years, should be more geared like ST1 or even like Voyage Home then WOK or FC. But, Hollywood of current age demands sex and violence so there's no chance we get a usable/ watchable ST movie in current climate.

It's strange though because the recent success of things like Mario or Minecraft should show them that going less serious and more exploratory/fun with the stakes is totally achievable. Seems like it's a slow lesson for them though.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

First they need to do a timeline reset that erases Discovery and everything from the reboot trash.


Then they can pop in a few hundred years after TNG with a fairly blank slate and try not to ever go back to meddling with #### in the past. Time travel episodes are fine, but the alternate timeline/universe stuff is so weak. Stay away. Tell some good stories without all the baggage. This shouldn't be that hard.

I think a few hundred gets tricky because all of the temporal cold war stuff. Exploring the century before that would be great though!

[CaptainCrunch]

The one thing they touched on and it was just a one off, was the one episode where Worf was going to resign his commission and head off to join this group that patroled the Federation border.


But you could have a series like that with a bunch of cast off and rejects patrolling the Federation Border in these crappy ships, taking on pirates and smugglers and the occassional threat of Klingons or Romulans or Gorn or whatever.


WE wouldn't have these shiny hotel like spaceships. The crews could be ard edged and jaded.


Maybe the main character is some guy who flunked out of the academy and had no where to go.


And no his name is not Jon Snow.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

I think that's part of the issue with how people look at Star Trek now. The Federation in open conflict is okay. It's a fun thing to poke and prod around. That isn't what the Federation was supposed to be. It was supposed to be about finding peace. What make's Star Trek is that not everything is supposed to be about conflict. It should be about the Universe as a whole. Science. Anomalies. Political intrigue between allies and enemies. TNG had the Klingons as allies who no longer wanted or could no longer go toe-to-toe with the Federation and still managed to find ways to make them and their goings on interesting without making it as simple as the Federation vs The Empire. Even at the height of the Dominion War, DS9 was still cycling in science or intrigue.


The issue isn't that they've run out of ideas. The issue is they are focused on one type of story and it doesn't work for what Star Trek is about.

How many anomaly stories can we have? Also the ships have super sensors. Politics works only as far as a organization can apply force, and the Federation have all the force. There is no problem they can't solve. The storylines become less compelling. It's humans that are gods versus gods.

And the Federation has no economy. It exists post-scarcity. It makes no sense that border ships suck. They can just spit out new ships with aplomb, because that's what post-scarcity means.

[Monahammer]

They could take it in a "culture"-series like direction, and have ships computers become more and more sentient to a point that the political tension becomes them vs the corporeal beings who were formerly in charge of the federation?
That would be an interesting lense on the AI stuff ongoing right now.

[Locke]

At the end of the day the answer remains the same.

All Star Trek Films benefitted from years and years of familiarity and past content via the shows. You know what world you're in, you know the ships, the characters and largely the circumstances.

If they want to make a movie about a new crew, new ship, etc. with no hundreds of episodes of back-story and character development then that film will fail.

Its not a coincidence that the TOS films used the cast that we know and are familiar with, its not a surprise that the TNG films used the cast and ships and everything that we already know and its surely no surprise that the Kelvin-verse did the same.

They leaned on baked-in backstory and inherently built Goodwill.

If you dont have that you're going to have a bad time.

I actually think more and more that a Captain Shaw show or a Seven of 9 show would be a prudent way to lean into a movie.

But guys...you gotta give us more than 10 episodes every couple of years.