Movies

Saving Star Trek

By Leroy Douresseaux
April 26, 2006 - 13:14

Last week, Trekkie hearts were sent a-twitter-pating when news got out that Paramount Pictures pegged “Alias” and “Lost” creator, J.J. Abrams to revitalize their Star Trek film franchise.  Abrams, white hot as the director of Mission Impossible III, will apparently direct the new Trek film from a script by MI3’s screenwriters, Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci. 

Star Trek The Motion Picture

Abrams proposal is to do the 11th Trek film as a prequel featuring younger versions of ubiquitous Trek characters Captain Kirk and Spock.  This isn’t an original idea.  Screenwriter Erik Jendresen (“Band of Brothers”) previously wrote a project called “Star Trek: Beginnings.”

Recently, MSN.com writer Gregory Bellwood, in his column “Hollywood Hitlist,” proposed “10 Ways to Save ‘Star Trek’.”  I decided to put my ten cents in using Bellwood’s proposal as launching points.  For the most point, the recent Star Trek series have been geared strictly towards Trekkies and other Trek fans, and the new stuff has just failed to attract casual viewers or very many loyal viewers for that matter.  But for the sake of argument, Mr. Charlie #80 will do this:

Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan

Point #1:  Bellwood is against the idea of a prequel, using the Star Wars trilogy as an example.  He’s right.  Movie prequels tend to be mediocre, especially when judging them against the beloved work that came before them.  The Star Wars prequels were not as well received critically as the original trilogy.  Adjust box office gross for inflation, and you can see that these new films didn’t catch on like the originals.

Prequels sound like a good idea, but they aren’t really.  The viewers already have a pretty good idea of what happened because all the juicy back story info they needed was given in the original work(s).  In order to create surprises in prequels, creators often gut the original work, which just hacks off the serious (or hardcore) fans of the original, and their word of mouth is sometimes important for genre entertainment.

Star Trek III: Search for Spock

Prequels in the literary and publishing worlds have been quite successful.  In fact, Paramount has had writers mining the past, present, and future of Star Trek in their licensed novels for the better part of three decades.  Many of the books take place, either in part or in whole, before the time of Star Trek: The Original Series.  The fourth Star Trek series, “Enterprise,” much reviled during its run on Paramount’s UPN broadcast network, was essentially a prequel.  Paramount, however, had bigger expectations in terms of an audience for Enterprise than it will ever have for a Trek novel.  Paramount should take Enterprise as a lesson or at least as a warning.

Star Trek IV: Voyage Home

And when it comes right down to it, the only people who are going to give a crap about a Star Trek prequel featuring Kirk and Spock are Trekkies, and they’re just gonna piss and moan about it anyway.  Other actors playing Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, etc. just isn’t going to work.  The original cast is just too ingrained in both American pop culture and in American culture in general.  William Shatner’s visage is synonymous with Kirk.  Even when the character’s face is drawn or painted, it’s Shatner’s face the artist uses.

My suggestion is simply to set the next film in the universe of the ST: TOS, use the original actors, but make the main cast new characters – as Paramount did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first Trek feature film.

Star Trek V: Final Frontier

On Point #2, both Bellwood and I are against using anything of the long-rumored “Starfleet Academy” proposal, which at various times was supposed to show up as either a new TV series or as a feature film.  It might work for the WB, a sort of “One Trek Hill,” but such teen-oriented sci-fi/fantasy genre shows as, “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and “Smallville” are the exception, not the rule.  Either as a television show or feature film, Starfleet Academy, focusing on the school that prepares cadets to work on starships like the Enterprise, would be of interest only to Trekkies, and I’m assuming Paramount hopes for a broader audience.

On Point #3, Bellwood is against using time travel because he says it was overdone on the original series.  If done right, viewers won’t care that time travel was a trope of TOS.  In fact, the most popular Trek feature film, Star Trek: The Voyage Home was about time travel.

Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country

On his fourth point, Bellwood exhorts Paramount to bring back Spock played by Leonard Nimoy.  It couldn’t hurt.

His fifth point – make the film cinematic.  The feature film franchise always seemed like extended episodes of the TV series, especially the four “Next Generation” films.  I think the lack of cinematic scope is the least of the franchise’s worries.

Hits sixth point – ditch annoying characters.  I’ll go a step further:  Any characters from “Next Generation,” Deep Space Nine,” Voyager,” and “Enterprise” should be left where they originated – TV.  There is a reason most of the actors that portrayed the spin-off characters were TV actors.  They and the characters they portray don’t play well on the big screen – with nary an exception worth noting.

Star Trek Generations

His seventh point on ditching the uniforms – maybe.  Or maybe they just need a good redesign, and there’s lot of Hollywood talent (bunches of it, in fact) that can design hot new Starfleet uniforms.  The uniforms just don’t bother me, and I doubt too many people other than Trekkies and film critics and movie reviewers will notice changes.

His eighth point about moving production from the Paramount lot is pointless… unless a visionary director has other ideas about location.

Ellwood’s ninth point about Paramount upping the budget for production values (like the sets) and CGI make good sense.  Years ago, I read an article in Premiere in which the article writer said that Paramount tended to hold the budget on Star Trek feature films (I think to about $30 million) because the films didn’t do that well overseas.  I think that if they want to revive this franchise, they’re definitely going to have to spend a lot of money on technical and production aspects.  This new film absolutely can’t look like it belongs on TV.

Star Trek First Contact

Ellwood’s tenth and final point is that J.J. Abrams cast real movie stars in his Trek flick.  I don’t see any big name talent (as in A-list talent): old, middle-aged, young, or just-getting-hot, playing such iconic characters as Kirk and Spock.  Not only would such actors come up short in the eyes of Trekkies, but even in the eyes of many casual fans.  I’m not sure any A-listers want to be typecast as new Trek characters, either.

Trek fans just won’t let an actor escape playing a popular Trek character.  Some time ago, Patrick Stewart, who played Capt. Jean Luc-Picard on “Next Generation” and in four Trek feature films, was holding a book signing (in New York, I think) for a book about his life as an actor, and many attendees kept insisting he sign the book with his signature Picard line, “Make it so.”  Stewart was reportedly quite angry because he wanted to keep that event free of Trek.  I’m assuming he didn’t want Trek to be considered his life’s work.  Welcome to the world of Trek – it comes with fans.

Star Trek Insurrection

I enjoyed Ellwood’s article, but I just don’t see Star Trek thriving as a feature film franchise.  Trek is best on the small screen.  When you look at the original series, you get the idea that it has more in common with the new “Battlestar Galactica” than it does with any other Trek series.  Starting with Next Generation, Trek became stiff, formal, and dry.  There’s something to be said for the original’s melodrama and theatrics (in particular Shatner’s “overacting”).  It was fun, whereas the follow-up series insisted on following rules and making the science in science fiction be more science than fiction.  Everything had to make sense – from the Captain staying on board during dangerous missions to “following the prime directive.”

If Paramount wants to appeal to a broad audience, whether they go with a feature film or a new series, they should take a look at what started the phenomenon and compare it to the later material that brought the franchise down.

Star Trek Nemesis

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Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12