Star Trek XI vs. Serenity by chronicthehedgehog

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

Star Trek XI vs. Serenity

POSTED BY: CHRONICTHEHEDGEHOG
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 12:17
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Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:11 AM

Just read this over at Dark Horizons, about Trek XI:

Quote:

The plan is to do something grittier, "There's an old tradition in space films, if you think about it, where war and conflict are very sterile. Death doesn't hurt, it's not really ugly. You can get killed by a phaser and just ... disintegrate. We're going 160-odd years before Kirk is born. It's an earlier time, and I think it would be really refreshing to feel something in the course of telling this tale, instead of being wowed by special effects, or presenting another crew in jeopardy where, in the end, the captain does something brilliant, and all's right with the world" says Jendresen.

This feel familiar to anyone else?

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Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:13 AM

DTUCK

[sarcastic]

Noooo....

[/sarcastic]

__________________________________

The best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

- Oscar Wilde

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Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:18 AM

ZOL

So, are we talking riding horses, shooting from the hip, shindigs, mega-mean corporations, band on the run type of thing ... I don`t think so.

Trek as it is needs to setttle off planet for a while - it`s been series after series saturating the TV & the Fans - tme for a desreved break (another 10 years should do it)

Darin (Zol.)

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Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:44 AM

DUG

I would agree that they need to rest the series for a good few years. They also need to actually get a new idea. There's an entire universe they can explore but every idea they come up with is the exact same. A view of life in a military ship, with the slight variation of DS9 being a military base. Until they gave them a ship, at least....

I would have loved to see an exploration of life on earth or life with a free trader rather than what they came up with for Enterprise. It was just the same tired concept rolled out one more time. Instead of another story of Starfleet I would like to see more of their universe. Think of dramas about the real world; there are tons of different concepts you could work with, but these guys are pitching nothing but different variations of JAG.

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Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:40 AM

BADGERSHAT

Absolutely.
I think they would do well to set a series in the Star Trek Universe, but NOT focus on Starfleet people. They'd do well to go toward some of the private captains (yes, akin to "Firefly") or colonists/settlers (like "Earth 2"), or something completely outside the military realm, like go into the scientists developing warp drive (like they sort of did in "First Contact")...

... okay, maybe they should just hang it up for a bit...

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
--Don't bother trying to predict, figure out, second guess, criticize, or suggest anything that comes from the mind of Joss Whedon, for you shall usually be wrong, and shall find out the Truth and Purpose in due time.
(This is the Truth of Whedoning)

"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

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Thursday, March 10, 2005 6:47 AM

THATWEIRDGIRL

We need a break. I could have sworn they promised us no movies for a while, didn't they?

I would love for them to explore outside of starfleet...or humans for that matter.

www.thatweirdgirl.com
---
After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
--Aldous Huxley

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Friday, March 11, 2005 6:52 AM

CYBERSNARK

Actually, all of your suggestions (which I agree with) are all vetoed by none other than Roddenberry himself. See, like Joss, Roddenberry was one of those SF writers who, when told that "we can not write real aliens. We are human, and thus utterly incapable of imagining or comprehending anything beyond our own humanity, and these are the most important stories/themes we will ever encounter," accept that doctrine and go on to write brilliant humanist dramas, in which any non-humans (if they appear) are merely "fun-house mirror" reflections of human characteristics. Star Trek is an allegory (note that every major race corresponds to a facet of the human psyche), one about humans, in which the aliens are just there as walking metaphors.

When TNG was created, Roddenberry wrote a "franchise bible" for any subsequent series. It included words to this effct:

Star Trek must always be about the humans; it's all about the human capacity to grow and improve ourselves.

To that end:
Any Star Trek series must focus on a Starfleet crew, and the Captain (i.e., the lead character) must always be human.

So, no Klingon ships/crews, no alien captains, no non-Starfleet crews, no civillian dramas, etc. Any non-humans must only be there to provide conflict and perspective commentary on the human leads. It's the novels alone who're free to defy this.

This is unfortunate for those of us (SF writers) who deny the old "we can't write aliens" adage (because if we were the sort to do what we're told, we wouldn't be writing SF in the first place) and try to out-do each other with our bizarre, perception-twisting aliens.

This is why Farscape is so utterly unlike any possible Star Trek; the Farscape writers tried to do alien characters (and, arguably, succeeded), while Star Trek is always about humans.

This is also why Voyager ruined the Borg; the Collective is unlike anything that a human consciousness has ever experienced --it demands writers who're willing to think like a single immortal hive-mind spread among millions of bodies (see First Contact to see it done right). Instead, the Voyager writers just couldn't wrap their heads around it, so we ended up with an empire of individual slaves, ruled by a Queen.

That said, and as much a fan of Star Trek and Roddenberry as I am (note that I speak of Roddenberry & Joss in the same breath, unabashedly), I believe that his initial vision was. . . smaller than Trek has become. DS9 played fast and loose with these rules, and has become one of the most acclaimed of all Treks.

By now, the franchise has grown large enough to go further. I want to see an alien captain, and a non-Starfleet crew, but it won't happen until someone has the guts to (conscientously and selectively) defy the rulebook.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Friday, March 11, 2005 7:03 AM

EMBERS

well I might remind you that not all humans in the Star Trek universe are in Starfleet...
they could easily write a show about the Star Trek world Roddenberry created,
but show Earth more
(I know they thought about a show at the Academy,
but I do NOT mean that...avoid the Academy)

Show other planets inhabited by humans....

but basically, wait a bunch of years until someone really creative comes along.
Someone like Gene Roddenberry.

In the mean time I am thrilled that Joss has created the anti-Star Trek
a world where all human ills have NOT been solved by an all powerful Federation
(because personally, I always thought that that was the weakest point of Star Trek...)

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Friday, March 11, 2005 9:42 AM

MACBAKER

Quote:
Originally posted by chronicthehedgehog:
This feel familiar to anyone else?

Yea!!! Another horrible idea from Berman and Braga!!! When will Paramount learn, and fire these two hacks!

If Paramount MUST have a Star Trek (and they do, to push their merchandising interests) then hand it over to people that respect continuity and the fans. My vote is for Manny Coto, who has made this season of Enterprise the best Trek since DS9 was cancelled, or Steven Ira Behr, who produced DS9. Even better, both of them!

Make a movie with cast members from TNG, DS9, and Voyager, and make it EPIC, not another low budget piece of tripe!

I'd given some thought to movin' off the edge -- not an ideal location -- thinkin' a place in the middle.

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Friday, March 11, 2005 9:50 AM

THATWEIRDGIRL

Quote:
Originally posted by MacBaker:
Manny Coto...Steven Ira Behr

hip, hip, hooray!

www.thatweirdgirl.com
---
After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
--Aldous Huxley

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Monday, March 14, 2005 11:42 AM

MISGUIDED BY VOICES

Marginally o/t, but Enterprise Season 4 began on TV over here (I think I may have missed the first, oh 3 years of it). I tried to watch, I really did -

started with the Drazi talking to N'Drath and another alien, with some shell-less turtles outside (not awful CGI actually) and one of the aliens was clearly Tucker "every SF series ever" Smallwood. Then it cut to T'niPol in short shorts giving some sort of wierd head up erotic massage to Chief Engineer Bones "I'm a Southern gent - minut julip anyone?" McCoy.

Then there was Sam Beckett looking in the mirror, but they screwed the edit on Channel 4 and cut the "oh boy".

At which point they played the theme tune, and I realised that season 4 was much more dynamic and bold than the first three seasons because they had speeded up the song and put the drums from the DS9 mark II theme behind it.

Then I turned off the television and promised I would give season 5 a chance when it comes around.

"I threw up on your bed"

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Monday, March 14, 2005 11:42 AM

MISGUIDED BY VOICES

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005 12:12 AM

EMMA

Quote:
EMBERS
Friday, March 11, 2005 - 18:03
In the mean time I am thrilled that Joss has created the anti-Star Trek
a world where all human ills have NOT been solved by an all powerful Federation

I agree with everything said so far (although the Trek verse doesn't quite match up to anything Whedon can do) but the anti-Trek world has been done a zillion times before.

Anyone remember a particularly brilliant British show called Blake's 7...it was quite influential? Babylon 5, Farscape and Firefly are all quite similar to it in many ways.

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005 1:38 AM

BROWNED

I got into the 'Enterprise' mainly because I liked the work that Scott B. did in 'Quantum Leap'. The real problem with the series was that every sincle Gene R. died the slowly kept moving further away from its original mission statement.

Gene saw 'Star Trek' as a cowbow, western in outer space that used the science fictional genre to make some very progressive commentary about issues of the late 1960's i.e. planned parenthood, the youth movement, racism, women's liberation, and the cold war. Aside from the 'issue of the week' the show had a level of ethnic diversity that was unheard then [and sadly all too often today].

Gene was a humanist and the orignal show never forgot that. Star Trek the Next Generation in many ways tried to stay true to the mission statement. Right before Gene died he had a press release saying that he was going to put a gay character into the show -- I think it was a male nurse -- and that would have been the time of tv milstone, especially if the character was treated as a real person. This would have been in 1991 so it would have been big, think "Willow and Tara" big.

Gene died and the 'issue' was forgotten about and their been plently of internet debate over the 'issue.' [including a nice web site outlining the history] Frankly, the writing became less about less about the mission statmenet in DSP and Voyager and Enterprise.

You look at "Buffy" and "Fire Fly" were sexuality and sexual orientation is a fact of life and something that is creatively explored as natural part of life and then you look at where "Star Trek" has gone and you wonder how something like "Fire Fly" gets killed [I would argue from day one when Fox told people in the ads what was inside the box. Although I figured it was either a person or a rather large porn collection] while "Star Trek" was allowed to slowly die.

Edward TJ Brown
Moorhead, MN 56560
http://www.geocities.com/edwardtjbrown/

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005 12:17 PM

CHRISISALL

I agree, Trek (although I love it)never was a show that served the common man. Just to be in Starfleet meant you had to be somewhat above average. Which is why I love Firefly- they're trying to survive, and that's a bold mission I can identify with!
uh-oh, Voltones, gotta go.

Chrisisall

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