You know, I want to be excited about another Star Trek movie. I really do. But everything I read just makes the situation worse and worse.
Star Trek is a dead franchise. When a franchise, or business is dead… you don’t revive it buy just going on your merry way and doing everything exactly the same and just suddenly expect different results.
But that’s what it looks like they’re doing. Same story… same continum… same dead franchise… just with different actors in the role.
The folks at STXI give us this:
Star Trek XI will feature the first voyage of Kirk as captain of the Enterprise. This report makes the Matt Damon report make a lot more sense (he is about the same age as Shatner was during the Original Series). This could also fit within Star Trek history since Kirk’s first mission on the Enterprise was never depicted on either the Original Series or in any of the 7 movies with the Kirk character.
It goes on to talk about how it’ll be the same old crew, same old time line… just previous to where the show started. Yawn yawn yawn yawn.
I really hope this turns out to be false. Star Trek is a guy collapsed on the floor from a major heart attack… and this plot idea sounds like a band aid. You need the frigging shock paddles baby! Man I hope they get this right… but I doubt they will.
Just my take on things.
I believe the Star Trek franchise could be revived by the interpretation by JJ Abrams – the concept though has merit except the part where Matt Damon plays kirk – If this concept of the Star Fleet Academy days is true, it would best lend itself to ideas how ‘Lost’ explore using memories and flashbacks.
Shatner would kill to play kirk again and it’s a shame that he allowed himself to be killed off – however Mirror Universe stories show his alter ego Tiberius to still be active . Since Kirk died in the nexus, can’t he perhaps be found? The use of CGI to create virtual charcters of Bruce Lee is being explored as well as the X-men spin off movie featuring Magneto using facial mapping to make a younger Ian McKellen. If you’ve seen Disc2 of Pirates 2 the behind the scenes effects for Davy Jones explore how this can be achieved.
Lets hope that the visual construction is restrained like Lost or Alias and not the trashy hand held blink and you miss style editing seen in MI:3 – JJ Abrams wrote a crazy script for Superman some years ago – which might’ve been okay rather than the Superman we ended up with.
Give the fans what they want – explore the original stories interweaving actual footage with CGI recreations and get Shatner and Nimoy on board as if they are reflecting on these events whilst it mirrors that of the present story. Perhaps Spock is lamenting whilst searching for a way to find Kirk – Call it the search for Kirk !- leave crazy-eyed Damon to the Bourne Identity films – William Shatner is Kirk and if they can’t use visual effects to assist the story telling (if it is to focus on this timeline )- then make a fresh start.
Come on JJ pull the rabbit out of the Hat like you do on Lost or Alias – remember how Vaughn got pounded by an assault rifle and then with clever flashbacks his story was retold so he survived? Star Trek can live on – just don’t do a Bryan Singer and F**k it Up!
lets see whats the makers of star trek have in mind to make a new movie
and of it works and they can make it alive ore kill it.
whe wil see that when it comes out. i have some doubts but ill give
it a chance to see whats they going to to do
Here are my casting suggestions for the Star Trek movie:
1. Kirk Owen Wilson
2. Spock —- Ben Stiller
3. Bones —- David Dochovney
4. Scotty — Jack Black
5. Sulo John Cho
6. Ohura —- Alicia Keys
I’m a huge Star Trek fan but dead-gum-it, why can’t they let the sleeping dog lie. I’m so heartsick they want to waterdown this classic. When it comes to gold digging and greed I don’t know which is worse Hollywood or Hollywood or Hollywood. UGH!!!!!UGH!!!!
I’m tellin’ ya, Jeffrey Hunter looked a *lot* like Bruce Campbell. I think it would be really great to get Bruce Campbell to play Captain Pike. He’d only be in the film for a few minutes as he handed over command to Kirk and it would be *really* cool to see Pike handled that way. Both Hunter and Campbell have those “Hero chins” and it just makes so much sense. Plus, then I get to see Ash in command of the Enterprise. Heh…
there we go sandler as spork and vince vaughan as kurk…..and we have a hit on our hands…..
They’d have to get Adam Sandler as “Spork” though.
I am with you on this one campea…time for them to try something completely new…
They should do a starfleet academy movie but make it like police academy….
a young kirkish type guy called Kurk loses his job parking starships due to his smart mouth and cheeky one liners and his girlfriend leaves him so he and his roommate Spork (a vulcan) decide to join the starfleet. The starfleet is run by an absent minded klingon by the name of Commander Slavarktork who is always making hilarious speeches filled with unintentional sexual innuendo.
They get placed in a class with a ragtag group of comedy film cliches (fat guy, fast talking black guy, nerdy guy and nerdy girl who have a funny anti gravity sex scene, psycho guy, a weird alien who has three boobs that we see in a very funny girls locker room scene where kurk has managed to convince an alien to help him shapeshift so he can get footage of the girls changing for all the guys in his dorm, uptight guy who is kissing the teachers ass and ruining kurts wacky plans, the blonde who kurk has a romance subplot with etc etc)
and the teacher they get stuck with is the toughest meanest teacher in the entire academy – Lt. Shatner (wink wink) and straight away he and kurk hate each other…kurk is constantly setting shatner up and in one classic scene with sporks help they even trick him into having oral sex with the chameleon crivekbeast from nebulam!!
The film climaxes with the class going out on a routine training mission only to get captured by the borg who are planing their biggest attack ever which threatens the entire universe and Kurk who was left behind due to insubordination has to finally grow up, rescue his class, get the girl and save the universe!!!
it would be awesome…..
I’m just curious to see what they will do with the Starfleet technology and special effects. Will they stay true to the old 60’s tv show or will they re-imagine the technological style like Enterprise or Star Trek:TMP did? From the “teaser” poster, it looks like the old uniforms will be back, so that’s a clue.
I hope they stay true to the tv show and create a retro 60’s “mod” visual style for everything. That would be freaking cool to look at. I’d love to see the original bridge redone for the big screen, the same bridge as the TV show but with modern special effects. And I can’t wait to see the old NCC 1701 Enterprise rendered in big budget CGI glory. Maybe they’ll even use updated but similar sound effects for the transporters and phasers.
If they get the right people to work on it, this movie could be ground breaking in terms of visual design and style.
I have high hopes for this movie. I really do. And I think Matt Damon is perfect for Kirk. If they nail the rest of the cast and write a kick ass script they really could save Star Trek.
If Matt Damon is going to be Kirk, does that mean Ben Affleck is signed on as Mr Spock?
I know the franchise is long in the tooth. But do I believe the franchise is dead?…in a coma maybe but not dead.
Look I’ve been a huge fan of Trek…I grew up with the reruns and STNG and the other spinoffs like every other fan…but I always go back to the original crew. They were the best…and that does not mean I didn’t like the Next Gen crew…I just like the oringinal crew better. If any crew can renergize ( no pun intended) the franchise, it’s going to be the original.
Now I am not a fan of J.J Abrams..Lost, Alias and his previous projects never lit my fire, but people like him and his work so I am willing to see what he can do with this franchise.
Who knows maybe he can give us a original twist with the original crew. Me personally, I am not so stuck on the history and facts of the franchise. Heck, if you ask me the trek timeline has already been tampered with, by Berman and the dozens of writers that have worked on Trek…consistency?! Hogwash! The history of Trek is already a mess!
So if they do a well written reimagining I am all for it. Look at what happened with Galactica and Batman…great reimgaining which lead to great creative works.
I’ll always love Shatner and Nimoy and Kelly and the rest of the cast as the the original crew, but seeing new faces in those roles could be cool and refreshing!!
Reinterpretations can be the the juice to give life to a long winded franchise.
Live Long and Prosper!!
Flop badly.
It could be interesting, especially if they play up the initial coldness between Kirk and Spock with Gary Mitchell between them.
There will be no middle ground with this. It will either soar or flop badly.
I wouldn’t say Star Trek as a franchise is dead so much as I’d say the stories and the characters they’re telling them about are. And that’s what’s taken the franchise out the pop culture consciousness. Star Trek is an interesting Universes with lots to play with- they just need to take the story down a different road with, as John said- different characters– make it a little more hard boiled.
Hi,
I run the ‘Trek XI Report’ and I understand and share many of the concerns above. But I do have faith in Abrams, and his team and am hopeful. In the last few years Paramount were given three ‘pitches’ for Trek.
1. Logan/Spiner ‘Nemesis sequel’ with an ensemble TNG era cast
2. Berman/Jenderson post ENT Romulan War with new cast
3. Abrams/Orci/Kurtzman ‘TOS remake/sequel’
Paramount soundly rejected the first two and put Trek into the deep freeze until 3 came along. It may be they were picking the team over the story and that they wanted Abrams so badly they gave him Trek to play with as a toy. But these guys are not idiots and so I am hopeful. I do think MI3 was the best of that series and this is the same team essentially.
I think that Trek is as dead as the batman franchise was after the Clooney/Batman & Robin crapfest. So like WB, they are ‘going back to basics’ and making essentially ‘Kirk Begins’. It might work, it might not work, but it sure beats another TNG era film from Berman
RE: Shatner
if you scroll down my page you will see a story we did on Abrams and Shatner meeting…what they are talking about no one knows, but maybe he will show up as some kind of flashback. I believe Paramount have already started construction on a new girddle and hairpiece
I’m not a fan of prequels so thumbs down from me.
And I think there should not be Kirk without Shatner.
I think there is still an audience for a Trek movie, but don’t give us a prequel. Enterprise was a prequel and that did not work. I would not want’t to see a reimagination a’la Galactica either. Only option is to approach the story from a different angle (as mentioned in the Audio Edition) and try to avoid the main pitfalls and cliches that unfortunately plague most Trek material today. Maybe all good things…
To be honest, I would much rather see a sequel to Whedon’s Serenity than anything Trek-based.
*yawn*
Normally I’d defend this and say John, you are wrong. You are so wrong! Star Trek isn’t dead!
Yeah, normally.
Starting today, as of this moment, I am now …
Look, people. If this is truly want JJ Abrams and Paramount is going to do, fine. While they are at it, restart it. And there is a way to get around it. YES you heard Sealer say iy it and seen him wave the freaking white flag of surrender and mercy! You go forward. You don’t go back. If these folks want to go back fo darn much…why not just have some idiot go back in time, change the timeline, (like in ST:Voyager) and the timeline gets screwed up without anyone noticing. Bingo.
If Star Trek isn’t near death, it is halfway in the coffin. It’s not the fan’s fault. It is the filmmakers fault. Give the people crap, what do you expect? Give the people recycled characters and situations (Nemesis) and is it a surprise that the film disappoints? When “StarGate SG1” and “BattleStar” come up, “Trek” isn’t the only kid on the block.
In the first two seasons of “Enterprise” they threw in the sex jokes, the wink-wink at the fans, and only in the last season did the show improve under Manny Coto. Why didn’t Paramount bring him back to be a part of the new film? No- they seem to want to help bury it. Oh well.
I think this might be the plague of “Batman Begins.” Now all the studios seem to think they can revive old, tired franchises if they just go back to the beginning and tell the stories that weren’t told in the original sagas. Ideally, if it’s done right – as it was with Batman and hopefully will be with James Bond – you can make the old new again with a little bit of edge.
But in the case of Star Trek, I have to agree with you, John. It’s already been stretched so thin, with the original formula spun off as far as it can go. The only way to make Star Trek new again is to just start over again, a la “Battlestar Galactica.” Go “back to formula,” as the line in “Spider-Man” went.