Can anyone please tell me this...

[Dennis Toy]

Will someone please tell me why TPTB keep ignoring Excelsior. Star Trek: Excelsior would be a good show. Excelsior is a cool looking ship, Sulu is good. WHY do they keep ignoring it

[neoolong]

Uh, perhaps because TPTB in charge of ST are complete morons.

[Stormbringer]

Will someone please tell me why TPTB keep ignoring Excelsior. Star Trek: Excelsior would be a good show. Excelsior is a cool looking ship, Sulu is good. WHY do they keep ignoring it

Because George Takei is an old man by now and isn't likely to appeal to the young hip and dumb crowd that's the current target audience of Trek.

[Dennis Toy]

just look at this...

[Dennis Toy]

they are missing an opportunity is all i got to say

[Stormbringer]

they are missing an opportunity is all i got to say

Not really, not under the current people. It'd just be desecration, B&b are utter fucking idiots. They'd fuck it up badly.

[Perinquus]

they are missing an opportunity is all i got to say

Not really, not under the current people. It'd just be desecration, B&b are utter fucking idiots. They'd fuck it up badly.

Truer words have never been spoken. Be grateful they aren't doing this series. As it is, Sulu can be remembered as a part of the great original series, from when Star Trek was truly a wonderful show. If Berman and Braga ever got their hands on Sulu and made a series around him the memory of that character would be forever tainted, and B&B's corruption of Star Trek would extend back into the original series' generation.

[Dennis Toy]

that what i was thinking,... Berman and Braga should NEVER and i repeat NEVER touch Excelsior....


I rather have Nick Meyer or Harve Bennet do it

[Shinova]

Someone should go resurrect Gene Roddenberry and have him take over the Star Trek franchise. Maybe things'll turn out better then.

[neoolong]

Someone should go resurrect Gene Roddenberry and have him take over the Star Trek franchise. Maybe things'll turn out better then.

Actually not all of Roddenberry's ideas were that great. Didn't he not want conflict on ST?

[Vympel]

TNG was Rodenberry's vision, not TOS. TOS was much better because Rodenberry didn't have free license to implement all his ideas.

[Shinova]

TNG was Rodenberry's vision, not TOS. TOS was much better because Rodenberry didn't have free license to implement all his ideas.

Anou?

Rodenberry actually said that he preferred TNG over TOS? And that if he implemented all his ideas the show would've turned out worse?

[NecronLord]

Not roddenbery please!

please

phleahasseee

[Vympel]

TNG was Rodenberry's vision, not TOS. TOS was much better because Rodenberry didn't have free license to implement all his ideas.

Anou?

Rodenberry actually said that he preferred TNG over TOS? And that if he implemented all his ideas the show would've turned out worse?

Yes, Rodenberry did say that TNG was his vision of ST. However, it is my opinion that TOS was superior because Rodenberry didn't get to implement all his ideals- TNG was where he did that.

[Perinquus]

TNG was Rodenberry's vision, not TOS. TOS was much better because Rodenberry didn't have free license to implement all his ideas.

Anou?

Rodenberry actually said that he preferred TNG over TOS? And that if he implemented all his ideas the show would've turned out worse?

I don't know that Roddenberry ever explicitly stated he preferred one over the other, but he did make a strong point of taking TNG directly into syndication, and thus avoiding the kind of network interference he had with TOS, thus allowing himself more creative control over the final product.

For example: in the first pilot "The Cage", his first officer is a woman. NBC executives insisted he drop the female first offficer and the alien guy (i.e. Spock). Roddenberry knew he could perhaps successfully fight for one, but not both, so he opted to fight for Spock (wisely, given how popular the character would become) because he felt that there had to be an alien in the crew. But he didn't get to have the female first officer he wanted.

In countless other ways NBC was "cramping his style" and he couldn't always do the things he wanted with the show, which is why he pretty much gave up by the third season and stayed on in an almost purely nominal capacity; he was fed up with not being able to do what he wanted, and he was ready to move on to other projects.

Going straight to syndication with TNG allowed him to avoid all those hassles with a network and do it all his way, so TNG reflects more of his personal preferences and ideas than TOS did. Unfortunately, not all his ideas were good (e.g. children on a warship, leftist anti-capitalism, new age, politically correct, touchy feeliness, etc.).

But even with Roddenberry's faults the final product was a thousand times better than the travesty to which Berman and Braga have brought the franchise. I suspect that Roddenberry would cringe at the low quality of writing and stories these days, and the one note caricatures to which all the alien races have been reduced.

[Slartibartfast]

The network also told him "you must have a villain. you must have conflict. bad things must happen to the crew so they can solve it. we give you: the Kingkong."

Not the current crappy bloodlustin' Kingkons, but the original mongol-like, devious and interesting Kingkons. (which got better in the movies, even, prosthetics and all)

[Darth Yoshi]

Who was responsible for the TNG Klingon? I have this vague notion that Rodenberry was still active in TNG when the Klingons became all shitty, but I'm probably wrong.

[Uraniun235]

Slarti: Gene Coon was the man behind the TOS Klingons; he created them.

Going straight to syndication with TNG allowed him to avoid all those hassles with a network and do it all his way, so TNG reflects more of his personal preferences and ideas than TOS did. Unfortunately, not all his ideas were good (e.g. children on a warship, leftist anti-capitalism, new age, politically correct, touchy feeliness, etc.).

I'm pretty sure Gene would have responded by saying that Starfleet was not intended to be a military organization, and by extension the Enterprise was not intended as a warship.

I rather have Nick Meyer or Harve Bennet do it

I don't think either of them would be interested in doing a ST series.

I'm really not sure who you could trust to get it right, except maybe Takei himself. Personally, the idea sounds really interesting to me, but I know it'll probably never happen.

[Slartibartfast]

Who was responsible for the TNG Klingon? I have this vague notion that Rodenberry was still active in TNG when the Klingons became all shitty, but I'm probably wrong.

You mean responsible for including them, or from turning them shitty? If you mean the first, even if Rodenberry had full control he wouldn't be able to remove them from the show, they were already important to the show. Turning them to shit, I don't rightly now... they really fucked with their teeth, though.

[Slartibartfast]

Slarti: Gene Coon was the man behind the TOS Klingons; he created them.

Whoever did that, I don't know, but I heard or read somewhere that Rodenberry didn't want conflict or nasty aliens, and that everything should be happy-happy land, maybe the only conflict would come from technobabble anomalies.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The flux plasma warp coupler could cause a phase transition in the cosmic background energy! Everyone run! Be scared, please.

[Patrick Degan]

just look at this...

Sorry, but there's zero chance of a Capt. Sulu series being done. George Takei's in his 60s and too old for the target demographic for BragaTrek™.

And we'd already gotten a look at what a Capt. Sulu series produced under the aegis of BragaTrek™ would be like —it was the execreable Voyager episode "Flashbacks".

You can dream about a Capt. Sulu series as much as you like, but the brutal reality is that ship's already sailed. If they were going to do anything like that, it would have been ten years ago. It's not even remotely possible now.

[Uraniun235]

So, what you're saying is that the target audience has gotten so dumbed down that they would not accept George Takei as an actor portraying a starship captain?

Why aren't we being blunt here? It sounds to me like the franchise has gone beyond the point of no return, and is ultimately doomed to Tits&Action episodes... why pretend it's anything different?

[Patrick Degan]

So, what you're saying is that the target audience has gotten so dumbed down that they would not accept George Takei as an actor portraying a starship captain?

No, I'm saying that the only audience which is actually watching the Franchise these days is that dumbed down. Fans have been steadily deserting BragaTrek™ for a decade now.

Why aren't we being blunt here? It sounds to me like the franchise has gone beyond the point of no return, and is ultimately doomed to Tits&Action episodes... why pretend it's anything different?

I've been saying that more or less for two years now. Long past time to draw the shroud over the corpse.

[Perinquus]

Slarti: Gene Coon was the man behind the TOS Klingons; he created them.

Going straight to syndication with TNG allowed him to avoid all those hassles with a network and do it all his way, so TNG reflects more of his personal preferences and ideas than TOS did. Unfortunately, not all his ideas were good (e.g. children on a warship, leftist anti-capitalism, new age, politically correct, touchy feeliness, etc.).

I'm pretty sure Gene would have responded by saying that Starfleet was not intended to be a military organization, and by extension the Enterprise was not intended as a warship.

I rather have Nick Meyer or Harve Bennet do it

I don't think either of them would be interested in doing a ST series.

I'm really not sure who you could trust to get it right, except maybe Takei himself. Personally, the idea sounds really interesting to me, but I know it'll probably never happen.

Well, in this case, I would submit that even the series creator, despite the fact that he dreamed up the whole thing, would be full of shit if he said such a thing, no matter that he might fully intend that, and even believe it himself.

Look at the facts:

1) Starfleet is a uniformed service, and has a rank structure and chain of command. Rank titles and duties correspond very closely to those of present day navies.

2) Starfleet follows ancient military protocols long established by earth navies (e.g. visitors to the ship requesting "permission to come aboard" from the commanding officer before they do anything else; captians being piped aboard as we saw in ST II, etc.)

3) Starfleet vessels are armed, and represent the Federation's main line of defense against hostile powers.

4) When adjudication of supposed offenses is necessary, Starfleet convenes courts martial to handle the matter.

5) In ST II, David Marcus contemptuously refers to Starfleet as "the military" (he's clearly represented as a pacifist, so he dislikes the military on general principle). No one contradicts his characterization of Starfleet as a military organization.

I could go on and on, but why bother. As the old saying goes: if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Starfleet is a military organization, and though they may perform many other duties, Starfleet vessels are warships, and filling them with a shitload of vulnerable noncombatants, including helpless children, has to rank up there at the top of the list of all time boneheaded ideas.