New Trek TV series in development.

[RogueIce]

People act like the Abrams movies were some aberration while the other Trek movies never had an action scene, even though TWK, TUC and FC most definitely had space battles and Picard running around with a Tommy gun. Hell even TNG the series gave us Die Hard IN SPACE for an episode.

Being set in the Abrams-verse is hardly some strike against it, except to butt-hurt fans looking for a reason to hate it before it ever airs.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, Star Trek always had action, but I think the emphasis is greater in the Abramsverse. And I do think it is hard to reconcile that with the optimistic future Star Trek was known for. That said, this does not necessarily make Abrams' films bad. For the record, I rate Star Trek at about 6 or 7 out of 10 and Into Darkness slightly lower.

[Lone Browncoat]

Yes, Star Trek had its' action moments, even on the small screen, I have my nitpicks over the TOS movies,
I prefer TFF over TUC because the early half dialogue was so badly written, especially the dinner scene, in
TFF, it was OK to have Sybok as a relative, but I would have preferred that they made him a cousin.
As in the TOS episode it was stated that Spock's family was important enough to have T'pau there, so his family
would have been powerful and wealthy[as Vulcanians go] to own as much land as that [seen in the remastered].
Indeed, before his death Robert Wise cleaned up and fixed TMP enough that it squeezed itself into the position of my
favourite TOS movie, even over WoK with the included ABC airing of deleted scenes.
I can also dig the Abrams 'verse, though I can nitpick the two movies as well.
As a corollary, everyone, including myself, over at the new Thunderbirds thread has disdain for Frakes' movie and would like to
forget it even exists.
Thats' the studio pressure to make small screen properties 'bigger and better' and it doesn't always work out.
So maybe they can tone it down the this small screen return and not make it a "what can we blow up this week" show.

@TRR...Well, Firefly is basically the best in terms of space adventure writing on television. I think that, sadly, that's setting the bar unrealistically high.

Well two new shows, this year were good, though I wouldn't be bothered if "Killjoys" got cancelled IIRC it got renewed, but "Dark Matter" seems like a good successor to "Blakes 7" minus the Liberator's transporter and I want to see more.

[Lone Browncoat]

...

[Lone Browncoat]

Here's why I'm frustrated with the missing edit button;



The server at 206.210.100.38 seems to be constantly glitching at inopportune moments, though this time I backed up my previous post within notepad when it happened again, I have a high speed cable connection, so Wong needs to attend this.
Lost a lot of text previously.

[Lord Revan]

Exploration and such are much easier to do on TV series then in movies though as you can have slower pace storylines then in movies, so theoretically you could have 4 interconnected episodes dealing with a single planet for example in a TV series, but try doing 2 movies that way and it's alot harder, even if in terms of seconds the running time was identical.

[The Romulan Republic]

You could do a thrilling movie without an emphasis on combat, though. I'd love to see a political or spy thriller in the Star Trek universe, for example. Or for action, why not a disaster movie where the Enterprise has to save some world from a natural cataclysm?

Edit: You could do exploration as well. Interstellar spent a lot of time on exploration, albeit driven by the threat of an apocalypse, and did very well.

[Lord Revan]

You could do a thrilling movie without an emphasis on combat, though. I'd love to see a political or spy thriller in the Star Trek universe, for example. Or for action, why not a disaster movie where the Enterprise has to save some world from a natural cataclysm?

Edit: You could do exploration as well. Interstellar spent a lot of time on exploration, albeit driven by the threat of an apocalypse, and did very well.

I'm not saying you couldn't do other then combat for a scifi movies but it's easier to do slower pace stories on TV series because people expect a different pace from a TV series then a movie.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, their is such a thing as a movie being too fast-paced (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith comes to mind).

[Lord Revan]

Well, their is such a thing as a movie being too fast-paced (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith comes to mind).

true but I wasn't talking about absolutes here but rather expectations so basically TV aren't expected to be as fast paced and you can have stories that aren't self-contained within a single episode, while it's alot harder to have a movie that ends with "to be continued...", not impossible but harder.

[The Romulan Republic]

You can't end a movie with "to be continued" unless you're confident of it doing well enough to get a sequel or have already filmed the sequel.

[Simon_Jester]

People act like the Abrams movies were some aberration while the other Trek movies never had an action scene, even though TWK, TUC and FC most definitely had space battles and Picard running around with a Tommy gun. Hell even TNG the series gave us Die Hard IN SPACE for an episode.

...I, for one, am not acting that way. You're exaggerating to the point of being meaningless.

However, it is important and desirable for Star Trek to contain more than just fighting. Each series of Star Trek, and several of the movies, contained lots of things that were NOT resolved through fighting. With plots like "a big threat emerges, but the threat is disarmed or persuaded to go away peaceably, because we took time to understand it." Or "The Enterprise and her captain must negotiate peace between two warring factions."

It's not somehow bad to have fighting in Star Trek. But it's vitally necessary to have a great deal more than "THERE IS ONLY WAR AND INTRIGUE." I hope the new series does.

Being set in the Abrams-verse is hardly some strike against it, except to butt-hurt fans looking for a reason to hate it before it ever airs.

I don't have a problem with the show being in the Abrams-verse.

I DO have a problem if the show proceeds to emphasize explosions in space at the expense of other themes and ONGOING WAR RARGH with the Klingons and deep scary conspiracies and the Federation's dark past and seamy future and collapsing civil liberties. I'm hoping that won't happen.

Exploration and such are much easier to do on TV series then in movies though as you can have slower pace storylines then in movies, so theoretically you could have 4 interconnected episodes dealing with a single planet for example in a TV series, but try doing 2 movies that way and it's alot harder, even if in terms of seconds the running time was identical.

Right, but there were several Star Trek movies where, despite the presence of plenty of action, one of the core messages was that really decisive solutions to problems are often achieved peacefully, not through violence. The first, fourth, and sixth movies come to mind.

For me, it's not about "there had better not be any ACTION in my movie!" It's about making sure it's not, at some basic level, an 'action movie' where the antagonists are always a target to explode.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Kurtzman being in charge isn't such an issue for me, if only because he's not going to be the only writer for it. And yeah, a series is in many ways easier to do than a film. For instance, if you make a bad episode mid-way through a series, it's unlikely to seriously hurt the series overall, whereas if you make a bad film you can stand a good chance of ending things right there (STV springs to mind).

[Iroscato]

I'm moving more into the 'optimistic' side of things now, seeing as Kurtzman will probably have relatively little influence overall and only appears as a producer in the vast majority of his IMDB filmography. Also, the fact that CBS are creating it suggests to me it'll be set in the prime timeline, seeing as CBS handles TV Trek, Paramount handles movie Trek (from what I understand).
It's a weird feeling knowing there will be a Star Trek series being made that I am fully aware of and will be able to watch as episodes are released - I was 11 when Enterprise ended in 2005, and it was before I'd even discovered the franchise.

[Prometheus Unbound]

youngling!

I was there for DS9 and Voyager's intros.

I didn't watch DS9 though - originally it aired on Sky 1, a premium channel in the UK - we didn't have a subscription. I caught a bit of an episode which had Bashir and Sisko in it, at a hotel once - but didn't know any of the characters. It must have been season 1 or 2.

I know I hadn't seen any of it until at least the Defiant came along as one of my friends was talking about it at school.

At some point though, I must have watched them as a kid because I remember getting a real player episode of What You Leave Behind - I was certainly watching it by Way of the Warrior.

Voyager I remember debuting. Again at a hotel, I saw the preview for it starting on Sky 1 - I distinctly remember Be'Lanna saying "Yeah, I guess you could say that" in the promo heh.

I think I watched that from start to end, although by 1998/1999 I was DC++ing the episodes (Im not sure torrents were a thing then).

Enterprise I watched from start to stop, on it's final episode, Terra Prime.


EDIT: I watched TNG on TV as it came out - but that was on BBC2 (wednesdays, at 6pm!!!!!) - I remember Encounter at Farpoint - the space jellyfish. That probably aired... 89/90 maybe, on BBC2 here.

[biostem]

with a secondary directive to take on new crew members from people thy encounter... sort of an exploration/ambassadorial mission...

No offense but that seems like a really bad idea. Such a thing might have worked in the age of sail when ships weren't all that complicated and crew-members pressed into service didn't need much training but for a starship taking on random dudes they encounter would get untrained most likely simpletons handling apocalyptic powers. Crew members who allegiances would be suspect and aren't even citizens of the nation the ships is from.

There's a good reason even Voyager, stranded on the other end of the galaxy with a dwindling crew and a unlimited supply of shuttles, never recruited natives beyond Neelix and Kes and neither of them had much in the way of important duties until they'd served years aboard.

Well, I'm not talking about making these people into core personnel. They could set things up so these new people undertake training on-board, (in fact, having a "mini-academy" on board could be a plot point), and their access would be apportioned to their demonstrated ability.

[Channel72]

The reason the Abrams films are so action-oriented and explosion-tastic, while neglecting the wondrous exploration angle everyone loved about TOS and TNG, is simply because the Abrams films aren't even really meant to be Star Trek films... they're meant to be "Hey... Remember Star Trek!!??" films. In other words, there's little that separates the Abrams films from any of the other various garbage-filled action-packed remakes of 60s/70s classic series like Lost in Space, or Charlie's Angels, or whatever...

The only difference is that this little 3-season series called "Star Trek" which aired back in the 60s happens to have been so wildly influential that it spawned like 4 other series, and created a hard-core fan-base that is probably rivaled only by Star Wars fans. But I don't think Abrams even looked at it like that - he saw a series that was big in the 60s/70s, like Lost in Space, or Charlie's Angels, or whatever, and created a modern "action-packed" schlock-filled version of that phenomenon. Dealing with the hordes of 80s/90s TNG/DS9 fans was more of an afterthought (something something alternate universe, Old Spock, whatever, fuck you...)

The creative minds that brought us things like "City on the Edge of Forever" or even typical TNG stuff like the episode where the Enterprise encounters a xenophobic race that erases everyone's memory except for Data's... those kinds of high-concept episodes where the main conflict is resolved by ingenuity, problem-solving and diplomacy... the people that worked on that have long since moved to other projects or retirement. I mean, let's be honest - a character like Captain Picard couldn't even exist in the Abrams framework... not unless he was recast as Vin Diesel.

[SpottedKitty]

I'll hold off on an opinion until we find out what kind of stories in which era they use. I've only watched the first of the new films and wasn't all that impressed by it, but... fingers crossed.

[DaveJB]

The creative minds that brought us things like "City on the Edge of Forever" or even typical TNG stuff like the episode where the Enterprise encounters a xenophobic race that erases everyone's memory except for Data's... those kinds of high-concept episodes where the main conflict is resolved by ingenuity, problem-solving and diplomacy...

...have never really been what the films have been about. Sure, TMP had a more high-concept storyline, but it was poorly executed and didn't connect with audiences. The following three films were more down-to-earth: TWOK's themes were of vengeance, facing a no-win scenario, and growing older, TSFS was about making sacrifices in the name of friendship, and TVH was a fish-out-of-water story with a populist environmental message. Then with TFF they tried a high-concept idea again - and promptly produced what was regarded as one of the worst major studio pictures of all-time.

TUC was probably the one exception to the rule, as it managed to combine a smarter, more intricate storyline with the sort of action entertainment that goes over well with the audiences. But still, that was more a political allegory than the sort of high-concept stuff from the TV side.

[Lord Revan]

The creative minds that brought us things like "City on the Edge of Forever" or even typical TNG stuff like the episode where the Enterprise encounters a xenophobic race that erases everyone's memory except for Data's... those kinds of high-concept episodes where the main conflict is resolved by ingenuity, problem-solving and diplomacy...

...have never really been what the films have been about. Sure, TMP had a more high-concept storyline, but it was poorly executed and didn't connect with audiences. The following three films were more down-to-earth: TWOK's themes were of vengeance, facing a no-win scenario, and growing older, TSFS was about making sacrifices in the name of friendship, and TVH was a fish-out-of-water story with a populist environmental message. Then with TFF they tried a high-concept idea again - and promptly produced what was regarded as one of the worst major studio pictures of all-time.

TUC was probably the one exception to the rule, as it managed to combine a smarter, more intricate storyline with the sort of action entertainment that goes over well with the audiences. But still, that was more a political allegory than the sort of high-concept stuff from the TV side.

The problem with TMP wasn't really the story though, it was the absurdly slow pace that halt the story to look at pretty effects for extended time several times during the film.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Well either way, Star Trek doesn't do well on the big screen - not proper star trek.

The only "true" star trek films were 1, (4?), 5 and 9. They were the only ones that seemed like big budget episodes of the TV show, and they were not (apart from 4) all that well received.

Trek isn't a movie, it's an episodic TV show. It doesn't translate well to movies, not for large audience shares.

Abrams didn't "shit all over" Star Trek, he did what had to be done for non-trekkies to watch it. And it worked. This is what people want, apparently. People don't want old style TOS or TNG type stories and TV shows - they want lots of explosions and action. Look at all the top 10 grossing films of all time. Any of them not an action film? I dunno, I'm not bothering to check. Maybe Toy Story 3 is in there, I dunno. But I gurantee it's Avatar, Titanic, Avengers (one or the other), one of the Transformers films... let's look:

Avatar
Titanic
Jurassic World
Avengers
Furious 7 (srsly?)
Avengers 2
Harry Potter and something
Frozen (ooo one with no explosions or death!)
Iron Man 3
Minions (ooo another with no explosions or death!)


Then we have Transformers 2 ( or 3 - the dark moon whatever), LOTR, Skyfall, Transformers dinosaurs, Dark Night, Pirates of Carribean...


Yadda yadda.


That isn't Star Trek. Star Trek won't bring in any of those numbers because Star Trek is not about all that stuff. In theory.

[Simon_Jester]

The flip side of this is that while spectacle works well for movies, it's not necessarily a sustainable basis for a TV show.

If you looked at the top ten TV shows by any reasonable metric, I suspect you'd find a lot less in the way of dramatic muscle-flexing action than in the top ten movies.

[Adam Reynolds]

The flip side of this is that while spectacle works well for movies, it's not necessarily a sustainable basis for a TV show.

If you looked at the top ten TV shows by any reasonable metric, I suspect you'd find a lot less in the way of dramatic muscle-flexing action than in the top ten movies.

As a consequence of budget restrictions as much as anything else, this must be the case. Combine this with the trend of the loose rules of HBO versus the dreaded R rating in big budget films, and it especially seems to be becoming the case that TV is the place for adult oriented fiction.

It is also not entirely fair to judge movies solely based on box office receipts. Something like the recent Tom Hanks film Bridge of Spies is the sort of thing that a lot of people would wait and watch on DVD. Different types of movies are watched in different ways. The way to get to the top of the box office is to make a movie that teenagers will watch a dozen times. Not to make the best film.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Exactly - they want teenagers - 12-30 demographic to watch. Star Trek is too slow for this demographic these days.

TV shows can give characters the time they need to develop. Breaking Bad couldn't be done as a film. Neither could Game of Thrones or Band of Brothers - to get the emotional payoff from each of these - even though they have lots of action and a big budget - you need a large number of episodes. You just can't cram that much stuff into a movie. Even a trilogy. Look at LotR. Great films etc. Not bashing them, but the characters as per the films, are pretty cardboard. No way are they as fleshed out as anyone in GoT for example.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't see the LotR characterization as particularly thin, but in any case, Lord of the Rings used the time it had terribly. New stuff was added for the sake of crappy comedy or melodrama, and Jackson abuses slow motion horribly in his films (to be fair, LotR wasn't the worst in this respect). They could have made a much better LotR adaptation in terms of characterization simply by using the time available more effectively.

I do think television offers some advantages in terms of the time you have to work with (obviously). However, their's a downside to that too. A long show is more likely to suffer uneven quality, continuity issues, or simply getting boring and repetitive, surely?