Star Trek XI .. after all?

[B5_Obsessed]

B5 fans tend to like DS9 best because it is grittier and less sanitized than the other shows - because it ismore like B5. Trek purists often dislike it for exactly the same reason. (BTW, I would tend to argue that TOS was less prone to the "man is perfected" fantasy than the later shows. Kirk could still have plenty of flaws that Picard, Roddennberry's ideal Federation captain, could never be allowed.)

Perfect example for that is probably Errand of Mercy - one of my favourite episodes of everything ever. I loved the way in the end, Kirk is left to wonder if he's in any way better than Kor, and the audience with him, that had firmly seen Kirk as the good guy throughout the whole episode

Yeah, Kirk was ready to kick some ass. WE HAVE THE RIGHT....

And a good downer episode for Shaal, the Mugato one. The Klingons are arming one side with superior weapons and in the end, Kirk's solution is to match every arms shipment with one of their own. Not a pretty or tidy solution, but a realistic one. The show was, of course, a parable to the US and Soviet Union's ongoing chess game in central Asia at the time.

 

[Recoil]

This whole Academy thing is funny in some ways. There were STRONG rumors that Star Trek VI was going to be "Kirk and Spock meeting at Starfleet Academy" but ultimately Paramount didn't want to let go of the original crew just yet, and the original actors didn't want to end their run with ST5. Good calls on both fronts. But things were drawn up, and there was plenty of pre-work done on an Academy movie. Some actors still joke that there is this "lost" movie floating around out there because of it.

I think maybe that lost movie ended up in JJ Abrams lap.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I never heard the faintest rumor of anything having to do with "Starfleet Academy" until they were looking for a story to succeed Voyager, and later for a new venue for the movies. In none of those cases did any of the concepts involve the characters of Kirk or Spock.

maybe that's why I am also losing intererst in both tv and Star Trek in general

Well, if happy endings are your problem you're also going to have to avoid movies, books, the theater, opera and comic books. Because most of the time in most media you're going to end up with a fairly happy ending. Even tragedies more often than not have some kind of morally uplifting message and feature the triumph of good. Richard III is the hero of that play, but he's also a Very Bad Man so his defeat and death at the end are a good thing. Hamlet ends up with a huge pile of corpses on the stage and practically everybody who's had a speaking role dead, but it also ends with the murder avenged, the evil king and queen gone, the curse lifted from the country and a - presumably - decent new ruler in the person of Fortinbras taking over. Gone with the Wind (book and film) end with Scarlett losing her husband and her daughter, but still believing that "tomorrow is another day."

There are some tales, even fairly popular ones, with very bleak endings, but they are few and far between because people simply don't have much appetite for that sort of thing. We all have more than enough sadness and unpleasantness in our own lives. For exactly that reason we prefer to immerse ourselves in entertainments where things are less bleak, where problems (which drage on for years in our own lives) get solved in 30 mintues or an hour, or a couple of hours in a darkened theater, where good overcomes evil (as it so rarely seems to do in real life) and where the ending is happy.

In the depths of the Great Depression one of the most popular American film genres was the screwball comedy - which generally depicted the foolishness of the very rich. People didn't want to watch socialist-realist tracts about living in poverty. If folks wanted to see people living in poverty they could look out the window - or in the mirror. They wanted to see people not living in poverty, going to speakeasies and nightclubs, sneaking in and out of bedrooms in tialcoats and silk nightgowns.

In a medium like television, which has to appeal to the broadest audience, and in any form of series, where you want the audience to come back nex week, there isn't a lot of room for downers. Even B5 didn't do a lot of episodes where the bad guys lost.

As for the Treks "doing the same story over and over again", you aren't being fair, don't remember the shows very well, or didn't watch a lot of them. At their worst (TOS in its third year, Voyager for all 7) the shows could fall into formulaic storytelling. But when they were on their game they demonstrated a great range. TOS alone essayed comedy ("The Touble with Tribbles"), farce ("I, Mudd"), tragedy ("The City on the Edge of Forever") and psychological study ("Obesssion", "The Conscience of the King") Hardly "the same story"

Regards,

Joe

 

[Jade Jaguar]

In the depths of the Great Depression one of the most popular American film genres was the screwball comedy - which generally depicted the foolishness of the very rich. People didn't want to watch socialist-realist tracts about living in poverty. If folks wanted to see people living in poverty they could look out the window - or in the mirror. They wanted to see people not living in poverty, going to speakeasies and nightclubs, sneaking in and out of bedrooms in tialcoats and silk nightgowns.

Regards,

Joe

One of my favorite screwball comedies from the 30s, Sullivan's Travels,directed by the great Preston Sturges, is about that very subject. BTW, "I, Mudd" is my favorite TOS ep, and "The Trouble With Tribbles" close to my least favorite. Very different, indeed.

 

[Recoil]

I never heard the faintest rumor of anything having to do with "Starfleet Academy" until they were looking for a story to succeed Voyager, and later for a new venue for the movies. In none of those cases did any of the concepts involve the characters of Kirk or Spock.

Check out the "extras" on the Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country (collectors edition) DVD. Spells it all out in there, even has story boards that they show. That was the original plan for ST6, but direction was changed in favor of where they went.

 

[Shaal Mayan]

JMS always talked about the bell curve too, and Shaal, your sliding off the edge. You can have your heroes lose a war at the start, if need be (think Firefly) but not at the end. How much of a downer would that be?

Wouldn't be much of a downer to me. Can't make a comment about Firefly cause I haven't seen it nor do I care to.And I am not *sliding off the edge * you don't even know me.Tv has became boring it all telling the same type of story with a new or different twist to it and our heroes have to solve it .How original .

 

[Chilli]

As for the Treks "doing the same story over and over again", you aren't being fair, don't remember the shows very well, or didn't watch a lot of them. At their worst (TOS in its third year, Voyager for all 7) the shows could fall into formulaic storytelling. But when they were on their game they demonstrated a great range. TOS alone essayed comedy ("The Touble with Tribbles"), farce ("I, Mudd"), tragedy ("The City on the Edge of Forever") and psychological study ("Obesssion", "The Conscience of the King") Hardly "the same story"

Regards,

Joe

True in the earlier days .. but by Enterprise, they had actually fallen to the level where they made episodes that were basically carbon copies of old episodes.

Oasis = Shadowplay (DS9)
Vanishing Point = The Next Phase (TNG)
E² = Children of Time (DS9)
Chosen Realm = Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS)

.. but that was the point when Trek had long been a zombie, yes.

 

[KoshFan]

I'm hardly qualified to speak on the Trek issues... but regarding happy endings:

To my mind the best possible ending is the "happy ending with a price," better known as "bittersweet." The Ring is destroyed, but Frodo can no longer live in the Shire. Ivanova lives, Marcus dies. Firefly does that kind of ending well because even on the best days, when everything goes right for our heroes, all they've really won is the ability to keep flying for another day -- and oftentimes there's a price in blood and suffering attached. There's no final victory or rest. BSG has a similar theme going; winning the fight means survival, not final victory. In fact, with BSG, I can tell when something truly awful is about to happen. How do I know? Things are good and people are smiling, that's how.

 

[hypatia]

Well, if Trek tries to move forward by essentially producing fanfiction, I certainly am not going to be interested.

Sorry if "fanfiction" isn't the right word. What is the word for "relies extremely heavily on already-established characters in the readers minds"?

When Star Trek stops going forth and starts sinking inward, it's not just dead, it's begun to decay.

So, I can only hope it's just not true.

It's too bad they never even considered doing a DS9 movie. If they want to rehash stories with established characters, I'd rather they use them.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

JMS always talked about the bell curve too, and Shaal, your sliding off the edge. You can have your heroes lose a war at the start, if need be (think Firefly) but not at the end. How much of a downer would that be?

Wouldn't be much of a downer to me. Can't make a comment about Firefly cause I haven't seen it nor do I care to.And I am not *sliding off the edge * you don't even know me.Tv has became boring it all telling the same type of story with a new or different twist to it and our heroes have to solve it .How original .

That wasn't meant to be an insult. I meant sliding off the edge of the bell. Sort of a metaphorical image kinda thing. Much apologizings.

 

[hypatia]

There have been plenty of war films made from the perspective of the Confederate soldier. Although I suppose they might be considered character studies or films that are "real bummers" in the end, they've done well as books and as films, I think.

In fact the "must have a happy ending for a USA audience" myth seems to be supported by what many of you are saying here. Which I always thought was a lie until I learned of films whos endings were changed just for the delicate American sensibilities.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

There are tons of films with sad endings from "Glory" to "Saving Private Ryan" to "Das Boot", where most or all of the characters die (even though in the first two films the war was won by that side). I think it all has to do with the investment the audience has in a story. I would suspect that no matter what your nationality, you could accept either a happy or unhappy ending when watching a 2 to 3 hour film. However, I just can't see anyone who would want to see an unhappy ending or to see the heroes fail after investing one or two or five years in a series. Of course, some would consider Sheridan dying and B5 being destroyed to be a sad ending. And it was, but it was also sweet and strangely satisfying. Films can harrow and punish an audience, but television shows must reward viewers with a satisfying conclusion (if they don't get cancelled).

I remember around 1985, reading Stephen King's "Pet Sematary" and "Thinner" back to back. And I thought, Man, he's in a pissy mood lately.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

To my mind the best possible ending is the "happy ending with a price," better known as "bittersweet." The Ring is destroyed, but Frodo can no longer live in the Shire. Ivanova lives, Marcus dies.

Those endings can be quite powerful and very satisfying, which is why tragedy is considered a higher art than comedy. But most people don't want that as a steady diet. If all TV shows did that kind of ending it would be just as monotonous as the frequent happy ending, with the added disadvantage of being very depressing. Tragedy may be high art, but in the real world comedy and melodrama sell more tickets. Because most people, most of the time would rather have their fantasies have a good outcome. Because that's what fantasies are for, to help us escape from less congenial realities. (Sometimes we like to revel in things that are worse than our own reality, which is why the horror story has been a staple since the first campfire was built. Any why roller coasters and other thrill rides are so popular. They lest us experience real fear and excitement while keeping the jeopardy safely fake. Stephen King has called such things, "dress rehearsals for our own deaths.")

BTW, I'd go easy on this "delicate American sensibilities" crap. Studio and TV executives have a consistent history of infantilizing and underestimating their office. There is no particular evidence that an American audience is less willing to accept a "downer" ending that makes sense in terms of the story and is the logical outcome of the events shown than any other. There is much evidence of nervous studio and network types just assuming this will be the case. I know of few cases where a test audience has reacted very negatively to a "downer" ending. But in all of them that I'm familiar with the writer and/or director had arbitrarily killed off the main characters in violiation of story logic and without any adequate foreshadowing in an attempt to "break expectations" and be "edgy" (A word that should be removed from the volcabularly of every single person in the entertainment business.) Sort of a reverse deus ex machina that, among other things, makes the past two hours the audience has invested in the characters meaningless, and the whole movie a cheat. So I'm on th side of those test audiences in those cases. That isn't at all the same thing as the hero buying it in the last 10 minutes but completing his assignment to blow up the Nazi rocket complex or saving the kids from the burning orphanage.

Regards,

Joe

 

[hypatia]

There are tons of films with sad endings from "Glory" to "Saving Private Ryan" to "Das Boot"...

Wasn't "Das Boot" German-made? The Europeans aren't (or at least weren't) as horrified of the idea of an unhappy ending.

Like Blake's 7.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Wasn't "Das Boot" German-made? The Europeans aren't (or at least weren't) as horrified of the idea of an unhappy ending.

Well, clearly Americans aren't, either, given that the other two films mentioned were American made and also giant box office hits. And while Das Boot was indeed German made, it was a very big success in America, where, oddly enough, most of the people buying tickets were American. It isn't like they imported the audience from Bonn.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I realize this is from awhilre back, but this line just caught my eye when I was scrolling through the thread:

The thing about DS9 is that once Voyager started up the people in charge seemed to have stopped paying attention to DS9.

Really? Well what did they start paying attention to? Their golf games? The stock market? "Worlds of Warcraft"? Because they sure as hell weren't paying attention to Voyager.

Regards,

Joe

 

[hypatia]

Which brings back the original question: why does the Federation have to win everytime?

I see it this way: they have to win, actually, so things will be stable enough for the next Star Trek series that comes along. If they leave the Federation in chaos and despair, they wouldn't be as free to choose to do this or that or the other.

With a nice, stable, victorious Federation, the sequel possibilities are a little broader.

That'd be my guess to the original question.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Which brings back the original question: why does the Federation have to win everytime?

It only brings it back if you haven't been reading the thread. Please check any of the four of five posts where I've already answered that question in detail. Want the short version? 1) You can do that sort of thing from time to time, you can't do it 22 or 26 times a year. 2) If any change in your story is so extreme that it changes the nature of your series, you'd better think twice about making it. If you're drawing big ratings with Miami Vice you probably don't want to do a storyline where Crocket and Tubbs fail to stop a crzed drug dealer from nuking Miami and end up working undercover in Montana driving a Ford F-150 and wearing bib overalls.

Joe

 

[Recoil]

So in summary: No real new rumors about the new Trek movie, and Shaal needs to let go of the hate and rent Firefly.

 

[hypatia]

That does sound about right.