The Star Trek Thread!

[iso_55]

12 hours ago, Logan007 said:

They only reason they helped him rebuild it was because they wrecked it and needed to rebuild it in time for when the Vulcan's pass by.  Also, the reason Ryker and LaForge joined him in the maiden voyage was that his crew mates who were supposed to fly with him got killed in the Borg attack.

Also, I didn't mind them showing him that he was in it only for the money.  You have to remember, they were still in a time where people used money and there probably wasn't a lot of jobs at the time.  Crap was happening all over the earth, so most people didn't have a great attitude about things.  I agree that the part could have been done better, but I'm fine with how he did it.

Thanks for clarifying Logan.  I haven't seen First Contact in years.

[iso_55]

2 hours ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

you guys have become legion...

Gotta like the guy with the blue vest in the middle.

[Jacquie]

10 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Which trek board?

also, agreed about Enterprise finale. Awful stuff. 

Mostly StarTrek.com's and a site called StarTrekFans.net. It's been a while though.

[Jacquie]

9 hours ago, iso_55 said:

Star Trek was hugely popular in the 90's & judging from what I saw back then we probably could have done without at least one series. At times, there were 2 series playing simultaneously which in the long run was bad for the Star Trek franchise. How many Law & Order & CSI series did we have on tv five to 10 years ago? The CBS network pushed the new series as it was in their best interests. I do believe Enterprise was on the Sci Fi Network as maybe was Voyager but someone can bring me up to speed on that as I'm not sure.

Here's the thing. I know that CBS owns the syndicated TOS series & if another series did come to pass they would probably broadcast it. They have all kinds of ST memorabilia, etc. They have no interest in an alternate universe ST as financially it would not be in their best interests aftger half a century. So, you have the movies in the alternate universe & any new series would be in this universe.  At some point it becomes a conflict as neither the movies or a new & the old syndicated series would support one another.

I think at some point ST the motion pictures will have to return to this universe for it to have any chance of being long term on television again as CBS will be in play. personally, I'd rather watch a tv series than a movie every 2 to 3 years.

Both Voyager and Enterprise were aired on UPN (owned by Viacom - then parent company of Paramount) in the States which was terrible for both series although more so for Enterprise. Both would have done better in syndication as they would have been in more markets.

CBS Entertainment (formerly Viacom) owns the TV and movie rights to Trek. As long as they make money off Trek they don't care about universes. 

[The Unknown Poster]

22 minutes ago, Jacquie said:

Mostly StarTrek.com's and a site called StarTrekFans.net. It's been a while though.

Nice!  I frequent Trekmovie.com and occasionally Trekcore.  Bob Orci (writer of the two Bad Robot films) frequents Trekmovie and often interacts with fans.  He's not overly popular though as he has argued and insulted some detractors.  The best example was  last year, he went on late one night and started really attacking a few of the people who had been critical of his work.  His posts were really angry, unprofessional and had some spelling errors.  His log in name was also written slightly different.  So everyone assumed it was a troll but the moderators confirmed it was Bob.  We all assumed he had been drinking.  It was a day or two before the news was released that he had been fired from Star Trek Beyond.  Seemed like he was handing out receipts...

He's calmed down a lot since then.  He's not around as much but still pops in. 

[The Unknown Poster]

8 minutes ago, Jacquie said:

Both Voyager and Enterprise were aired on UPN (owned by Viacom - then parent company of Paramount) in the States which was terrible for both series although more so for Enterprise. Both would have done better in syndication as they would have been in more markets.

CBS Entertainment (formerly Viacom) owns the TV and movie rights to Trek. As long as they make money off Trek they don't care about universes. 

The rights issue is confusing.  The way I understand it, Paramount owns the rights to the films.  CBS owns the TV rights and original trademarks that the films are derived from.  Paramount was basically told to make a movie or lose the rights which is why they ended up making Star Trek in 2009.  But they have to license the trademarks from CBS.

The reason they went with a "new" universe was Bad Robot owns the rights to derivatives.  Their plan was, if successful, they would create all new Star Trek licensing deriving from the new Universe and Bad Robot would control this creatively and financially.  One of the reasons speculated for JJ Abrams jumping to Star Wars was he fought with CBS before STID came out, over merchandising.  Bad Robot wanted CBS to stop merchandising original TOS Trek as it was confusing the market.  TOS merch was still a big seller, more so than the new stuff and they refused.

Bad Robot also wanted to make an animated series based on their "universe" and a TV series.  The political in fighting drove JJ nuts.  Bob Orci recently confirmed on another forum that he tried really hard to "unite" the two sides of Trek (Paramount movie/CBS Television) but didnt have the stroke to make it work.

The speculation concerning the new TV series being set in the "Prime" universe and possibly "around" the time of TOS is because that era is still a big money maker for CBS and they want to take advantage of it.  CBS couldnt launch the TV series in 2016 to take advantage of Trek's 50th anniversary because of a deal with Paramount to wait six months after release of their third film to do so.  If the series took place in the alternate universe, it would basically mean CBS licensing Star Trek to Paramount and Paramount licensing their derivatives back to CBS.  Too many cooks in the kitchen.  However, it is interesting that one of the Bad Robot writers, Alex Kurtzman is the Exec Producer of the series, but also interesting that his former partner Orci, who was the self-processed Trek expert/lover, was not invited by his buddy to take part.

There has been rumors that Bad Robot was under investigation for how they spent money and Paramount wouldnt continue with them after their three-film Trek deal.  Im not sure of those details because I think Paramount has other deals with Bad Robot.  But it seems the only connection between Bad Robot and Trek now is that JJ is still a producer, even though Justin Lin is the guy in charge.  Expectations are, unless Beyond is a surprising hit, that Paramount might not be making a 4th movie.  They have Pine and Quinto under contract for a fourth film as part of a deal where those two wanted raises to make Beyond or they wouldnt come back. 

Bob Orci submitted two different stories for Beyond before he was fired as Director and writer.  He still holds a producer credit but doesnt really have that power on the film.  Rumors are Paramount thought his stories were "too Treky" and one of them might have been too close to a previous Phase II story Planet of the Titans, creating trademark issues.  Bob's stories included Nimoy and Shatner.  In fact, my theory (although Bob has sort of denied this) is that when it was leaked last year that Shatner was in the story, that it was Bob who leaked it (or had it leaked).  It was around the time Paramount was rejecting Bob's stories.  The leak created a ton of positive press and the idea is that Paramount would have caved to public demand/interest in William Shatner returning and thus, save Bob's job.  It didnt work.  Although Paramount was foolish, in my mind, to reject Shatner.  But it seems Paramount has some sort of issue with Shatner.

Im hoping the film rights end up back under one company, namely CBS, who has done a really good job with Trek in recent years.  Their work restoring the TV shows (TOS & TNG)_ were way better than Paramount's work on restoring the films.  Star Trek is tailor made for a Cinematic Universe (which Bad Robot realised) but it cant work with two companies fighting over the direction.

[The Unknown Poster]

Here is some rumors about test screenings of Beyond (Bit of a Spoiler Alert):

This comes from Gustavo, former editor of Trekbbs...

 

“The source is Leo Roberts, a producer of B movies in Hollywood. He has his sources. He is the author of the fan film STAR TREK PHOENI. According to him, Paramount was doing several test screening, and they are worried. There was a screening test in Los Angeles, then, he said, it was not difficult to notice that the public did not like the movie (apparently the Enterprise only appears at the very beginning of the film and Kirk does not receive another Enterprise) and the same public hated the end. That’s no secret, I am a friend of Roberts since he produced his fan movie in 2010 and he posted the information with details on my Facebook page which caused several trolls. Justin Lin praises AXANAR the same week that Paramount politely asked him to reshoot BEYOND.”

[17to85]

I would like to see a new Trek series. I never really watched Enterprise, saw a few episodes here and there and never really got into it, Voyager to me was just terrible but when I was young I loved TNG and DS9, the latter being my favourite of the series. I think given the way people view TV now it would lend itself very well to some longer running story arcs as opposed to having an alien of the week situation. Just have to remember that Star Trek really isn't about the big space battles and adventure like Star Wars is (something I think they failed to recognize in the last couple movies). Keep it focussed on examining what humanity is and I think they've got something. 

[The Unknown Poster]

2 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

I would like to see a new Trek series. I never really watched Enterprise, saw a few episodes here and there and never really got into it, Voyager to me was just terrible but when I was young I loved TNG and DS9, the latter being my favourite of the series. I think given the way people view TV now it would lend itself very well to some longer running story arcs as opposed to having an alien of the week situation. Just have to remember that Star Trek really isn't about the big space battles and adventure like Star Wars is (something I think they failed to recognize in the last couple movies). Keep it focussed on examining what humanity is and I think they've got something. 

Agree 100%.  I think the writers of the films were the wrong choice.  They also wrote Transformers films.  They are into big, loud, flash bang films for drooling masses.  I made the point to Orci that the things they did were the easiest to write.  The hard part was what they didnt do, the story.  If you write a really good character film, its far easier to make adjustments to speed things up, add tension, add explosions.  But how do you shoe horn in character moments, drama and thought-provoking ideas when its wall to wall low brow action?

[17to85]

Star Trek the Undiscovered Wrath of Kahn was just so lazy. I enjoyed it in the theatre cause I'm a sucker for call backs and references but after some time to reflect on the movie it's really a mash up of Wrath of Kahn and the Undiscovered Country filled with enormous plot holes and a story that really doesn't make much sense. I was excited about the idea of rebooting the universe a bit to avoid having to stick to some of the cluttered canon but it's like they just tried way to hard to give us some fan service rather than caring about making a movie that made sense. 

I actually liked most of the actors they got for the cast as well. I think they could all channel the original characters well enough, the thing just got so far off the rails it was more of a parody than anything. 

[Taynted_Fayth]

I believe theres a difference tho in how you approach a tv show to a movie.  a movie, especially if your aim is at box office success almost demands it be a big battle adventure. One of the issues I had with TOS movies were some of them seemed like just long episodes from tv, thats not really what i wanna see when I go to a movie, it needs to be the concept but on steroids

[17to85]

If you do it well though you can have it both ways. Wrath of Kahn is held in such high regard precisely because it bridged the gap between examining a theme and combining it with some action. 

I've said it before in other threads that I hate the trend of action movies these days to be written around a couple big sequences. It's totally backwards and inorganic. The newer Trek movies suffered from that and so have the Transformers movies. We'll call it Michael Bay syndrome

[The Unknown Poster]

8 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Star Trek the Undiscovered Wrath of Kahn was just so lazy. I enjoyed it in the theatre cause I'm a sucker for call backs and references but after some time to reflect on the movie it's really a mash up of Wrath of Kahn and the Undiscovered Country filled with enormous plot holes and a story that really doesn't make much sense. I was excited about the idea of rebooting the universe a bit to avoid having to stick to some of the cluttered canon but it's like they just tried way to hard to give us some fan service rather than caring about making a movie that made sense. 

I actually liked most of the actors they got for the cast as well. I think they could all channel the original characters well enough, the thing just got so far off the rails it was more of a parody than anything. 

Totally.  The actors are good.  The writing and direction were awful.  Bones was a parody.  Uhura was an emotional needy insubordinate girlfriend.  Spock was an overly emotional Vulcan.  Scotty was "ok"...I get why he was the comic relief, although Scotty in the original was funny too but played straighter.  One thing I loved in TOS was those episodes where Scotty was in command.  I was looking forward to something like that, to show that Scotty is a great officer.  His forced fight with Kirk that gets him kicked off the ship was so awful...just shoe horned in for the purposes of the plot.

Chekov shouldnt even have been there.  He was too young.  Okay, Nero coming back in time made Chekov born sooner...yeah yeah.  Leave him out of the first two films and then have him "debut" in the 3rd as a rookie...would allow for a new perspective of a crew that was well acquainted. 

[The Unknown Poster]

6 minutes ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

I believe theres a difference tho in how you approach a tv show to a movie.  a movie, especially if your aim is at box office success almost demands it be a big battle adventure. One of the issues I had with TOS movies were some of them seemed like just long episodes from tv, thats not really what i wanna see when I go to a movie, it needs to be the concept but on steroids

I dont disagree.  But what they did also cost a ton of money.  Paramount was disappointed with the returns for STID.  But let's also look at films like The Martian and Interstellar and Gravity, showing that a smarter, more character driven sci fi film can be very successful. 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

ST:ID had a better ending then Interstellar

[Taynted_Fayth]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I dont disagree.  But what they did also cost a ton of money.  Paramount was disappointed with the returns for STID.  But let's also look at films like The Martian and Interstellar and Gravity, showing that a smarter, more character driven sci fi film can be very successful. 

I'm not sure their successes at the box office, but I do know they went up for awards, but the whole nomination and awards thing I take with a grain of salt cuz I dont agree at all with a lot of the academy's selections and winners lol.  Interstellar was bat **** crazy by the end of the movie and not in the good way, so that i'll leave at that.

  The Martian and Gravity are interesting choices when talking ST.  Essentially The Martian was space Cast Away, and Gravity was space Open Water.  but with their own flavor behind otherwise very similar premises.  Seems hardcore ST fans are quick to cut into anything remade in the franchise and not appropriately accurate or displayed with these revisions.  Sometimes, it might be better to just try enjoy it for what it is, then constantly put it up against a previous incarnation

[Taynted_Fayth]

I think I saw most of the backlash on Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan was the role should have been cast to a person of Indian ancestry.  I personally didnt mind his role as Khan, despite having seen Wrath of Khan, and enjoying it.  The main bad guy in Mad Max fury road kinda reminded me more of a traditional Khan,  but with Cumberbatch, you likely have a bigger window to expand on the character for years to come.  same with Pine as kirk

 

but then again I'm the same way with comics and cartoon-turn live action movies, I hold them in a very high regard and very critical to branching too far off the original premise. so I totally get it

Edited March 17, 2016 by Taynted_Fayth

[The Unknown Poster]

Cumberbatch is a fine actor. All wrong for Khan. I will admit I supported the decision until I saw it on screen 

initially Benico Del Toro had the role but backed out last minute. The film makers justification for going witj BC was tjeu didn't want to cast someone who appeared middle eastern in a role which was essentially a terrorist. Which is weird but Orci is a huge "truther". 

STID was a War on Terror analogy where the US is bad, **** Cheney is a war mongerer and Bin Laden might do bad things but it's because we made him and he's really just a nice guy after all.  In that context their decisions were ill advised 

Khan was a Sikh anyway. And probably should have been played by someone who looked the part whether middle eastern or Latino or whatever. But it wasn't just the look. The character wasn't Khan. He was named khan. But he wasn't khan. It sucked. 

[Taynted_Fayth]

and that's the draw back when you assume the character will be what you know him as, but someone elses vision ends up disappointing you for not being accurate to that image.  

If what I read was accurate, the cumberbatch Khan in ST:ID is from a decade before this Khan

so while I expected more of this Khan

I can sort of see why they went the way they did.  I always knew Khan as an advanced superior to humans, with a hate on the federation for the way he and his people were treated,  and while the way they were treated differed, I think it was just the directors take on how he'd do it

Edited March 17, 2016 by Taynted_Fayth

[FrostyWinnipeg]

50yr old Ricardo had more muscles then the Cumber.

[Logan007]

He also sounded way cooler.  WELCOME TO FANTASY ISLAND...er...I mean, CETI ALPHA 5!

[FrostyWinnipeg]

 

[Brandon Blue&Gold]

5 hours ago, 17to85 said:

Star Trek the Undiscovered Wrath of Kahn was just so lazy. I enjoyed it in the theatre cause I'm a sucker for call backs and references but after some time to reflect on the movie it's really a mash up of Wrath of Kahn and the Undiscovered Country filled with enormous plot holes and a story that really doesn't make much sense. I was excited about the idea of rebooting the universe a bit to avoid having to stick to some of the cluttered canon but it's like they just tried way to hard to give us some fan service rather than caring about making a movie that made sense. 

I actually liked most of the actors they got for the cast as well. I think they could all channel the original characters well enough, the thing just got so far off the rails it was more of a parody than anything. 

This...^^^.  100%.  Good post. 

[iso_55]

16 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

The rights issue is confusing.  The way I understand it, Paramount owns the rights to the films.  CBS owns the TV rights and original trademarks that the films are derived from.  Paramount was basically told to make a movie or lose the rights which is why they ended up making Star Trek in 2009.  But they have to license the trademarks from CBS.

The reason they went with a "new" universe was Bad Robot owns the rights to derivatives.  Their plan was, if successful, they would create all new Star Trek licensing deriving from the new Universe and Bad Robot would control this creatively and financially.  One of the reasons speculated for JJ Abrams jumping to Star Wars was he fought with CBS before STID came out, over merchandising.  Bad Robot wanted CBS to stop merchandising original TOS Trek as it was confusing the market.  TOS merch was still a big seller, more so than the new stuff and they refused.

Bad Robot also wanted to make an animated series based on their "universe" and a TV series.  The political in fighting drove JJ nuts.  Bob Orci recently confirmed on another forum that he tried really hard to "unite" the two sides of Trek (Paramount movie/CBS Television) but didnt have the stroke to make it work.

The speculation concerning the new TV series being set in the "Prime" universe and possibly "around" the time of TOS is because that era is still a big money maker for CBS and they want to take advantage of it.  CBS couldnt launch the TV series in 2016 to take advantage of Trek's 50th anniversary because of a deal with Paramount to wait six months after release of their third film to do so.  If the series took place in the alternate universe, it would basically mean CBS licensing Star Trek to Paramount and Paramount licensing their derivatives back to CBS.  Too many cooks in the kitchen.  However, it is interesting that one of the Bad Robot writers, Alex Kurtzman is the Exec Producer of the series, but also interesting that his former partner Orci, who was the self-processed Trek expert/lover, was not invited by his buddy to take part.

There has been rumors that Bad Robot was under investigation for how they spent money and Paramount wouldnt continue with them after their three-film Trek deal.  Im not sure of those details because I think Paramount has other deals with Bad Robot.  But it seems the only connection between Bad Robot and Trek now is that JJ is still a producer, even though Justin Lin is the guy in charge.  Expectations are, unless Beyond is a surprising hit, that Paramount might not be making a 4th movie.  They have Pine and Quinto under contract for a fourth film as part of a deal where those two wanted raises to make Beyond or they wouldnt come back. 

Bob Orci submitted two different stories for Beyond before he was fired as Director and writer.  He still holds a producer credit but doesnt really have that power on the film.  Rumors are Paramount thought his stories were "too Treky" and one of them might have been too close to a previous Phase II story Planet of the Titans, creating trademark issues.  Bob's stories included Nimoy and Shatner.  In fact, my theory (although Bob has sort of denied this) is that when it was leaked last year that Shatner was in the story, that it was Bob who leaked it (or had it leaked).  It was around the time Paramount was rejecting Bob's stories.  The leak created a ton of positive press and the idea is that Paramount would have caved to public demand/interest in William Shatner returning and thus, save Bob's job.  It didnt work.  Although Paramount was foolish, in my mind, to reject Shatner.  But it seems Paramount has some sort of issue with Shatner.

Im hoping the film rights end up back under one company, namely CBS, who has done a really good job with Trek in recent years.  Their work restoring the TV shows (TOS & TNG)_ were way better than Paramount's work on restoring the films.  Star Trek is tailor made for a Cinematic Universe (which Bad Robot realised) but it cant work with two companies fighting over the direction.

I've read the same things you have regarding CBS licensing & why the alternate Universe ST & the normal universe ST could never work. To allow an alternate universe series would affect licensing & income for the network. It all has to come together before  TV series can be done. You know a lot more of the details in your post than I do but from what I remember you're spot on....

[iso_55]

11 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Agree 100%.  I think the writers of the films were the wrong choice.  They also wrote Transformers films.  They are into big, loud, flash bang films for drooling masses.  I made the point to Orci that the things they did were the easiest to write.  The hard part was what they didnt do, the story.  If you write a really good character film, its far easier to make adjustments to speed things up, add tension, add explosions.  But how do you shoe horn in character moments, drama and thought-provoking ideas when its wall to wall low brow action?

You mean, like Kirk & Khan basically diving in space from one ship to the other? Or Spock & Khan fighting each other a hundred stories above San Francisco while jumping between what looks to be 2 flying barges????

Edited March 18, 2016 by iso_55