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Dark Reality

Trek XI to be a prequel?

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Paramount is breathing life into its "Star Trek" franchise by setting "Mission: Impossible III" helmer J.J. Abrams to produce and direct the 11th "Trek" feature, aiming for a 2008 release.

 

...

 

Project, to be penned by Abrams and "MI3" scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will center on the early days of seminal "Trek" characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission.

 

...

 

"Star Trek" has been Hollywood's most durable performer other than James Bond, spawning 10 features that have grossed more than $1 billion and 726 TV episodes from six series.

 

Decision to relaunch "Star Trek" comes less than a year after UPN pulled the plug on "Star Trek: Enterprise" amid dismal ratings following a four-season run and four years after "Star Trek: Nemesis" turned in the worst performance of the 10 films with $43 million domestic.

[source]

 

I do hope that this information is incorrect. Nothing against TOS, but I think with six movies, it has had its time, and newer elements should be brought to the big screen. Deep Space Nine, Voyager, even TNG elements yet to be explored. This is not a film I would be looking forward to at all - it would have to have something really special to justify going back to Kirk and Spock.

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Nothing against TOS, but I think with six movies, it has had its time,

 

The TOS movies did much better than any of the TNG movies at the box office. I think its a wise move going back to Kirk and Spock. They are universally known characters, much more so than the characters from the later series.

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That may be a good point for the coin counters in Hollywood, but someone on the GameFAQs board (would you believe, that's where I heard of this?) posted a better point: That Star Trek is about going where no one has gone before, and that means moving forward, not backward.

 

In my opinion prequels hurt sci-fi. I am interested in watching Enterprise since I've heard of this Temporal Cold War arc, but the first episode bored me, and I didn't get into it. More than that, Archer's Enterprise completely owns Kirk's. Of course a 2000's model Enterprise is going to be better than what they did in the 1960s. And it's not just Star Trek - I know I'm not the only one who thinks the ships looked better in the Star Wars prequels - not to mention the absence of the double-ended lightsaber however many years later the originals take place.

 

If Kirk and Spock are sellable characters, that's one thing... but considering they haven't made a sci-fi prequel to date that is anywhere near convincing, maybe they should take the elements of Kirk and Spock, find the elements that made TOS work, and work that into something new. Or perhaps what made TOS work, is that it was the original. If so many people are going to disregard everything that comes after TOS because TOS was the original, then nobody's going to appreciate another TOS movie because it's not the original.

 

How do you do a Constitution-class ship in CGI? Or are they going to break out the old one, with the fishing line, and drag it across the screen? Same thing with the sets - blinking lights, or full-color computer displays? They're either going to have to abandon all the advances in filmmaking and truly make another 60s movie (or 80s movie)... but the coin counters also realize that CGI sells. Their best bet for making a Trek prequel is to put Kirk and Spock into something which somehow shames every ship, including Voyager and the Enterprise-E (while selling it as a 23rd century ship), but doesn't have a holodeck, or replicators, or anything else Picard's crew took for granted. It's going to look silly. But it just might sell. I think, to true fans (either fans of TOS, TNG, DS9, or just of the whole franchise), it'll be a farce at best.

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How do you do a Constitution-class ship in CGI? Or are they going to break out the old one, with the fishing line, and drag it across the screen? Same thing with the sets - blinking lights, or full-color computer displays? They're either going to have to abandon all the advances in filmmaking and truly make another 60s movie (or 80s movie)... but the coin counters also realize that CGI sells. Their best bet for making a Trek prequel is to put Kirk and Spock into something which somehow shames every ship, including Voyager and the Enterprise-E (while selling it as a 23rd century ship), but doesn't have a holodeck, or replicators, or anything else Picard's crew took for granted. It's going to look silly. But it just might sell. I think, to true fans (either fans of TOS, TNG, DS9, or just of the whole franchise), it'll be a farce at best.

A CGI Constitution class ship has appeared in three Enterprise episodes: Both parts of In A Mirror, Darkly and These are the Voyages. And I'm surprised you forgot Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9).

 

They actually rebuilt the Constitution bridge for In A Mirror, Darkly Parts I and II and it looked very good.

 

But there is no guarantee we even see the Enterprise or a Constitution-class ship in this proposed, which gives the writers some freedom.

 

Granted, this is not my favour concept for a movie, but really, before we can move forward with a new series or another concept, the franchise needs to prove that it is still financially viable, otherwise there is no incentive for Paramount to go forward with anything.

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They are discussing the prequel movie on the community forums for the company that makes the forums that this site uses, and someone posted a reply with just one image that summed it up, and had me falling out of my chair laughing:

 

cash-cow.jpg

 

Here's the link [click]

 

The image is in post #16.

Edited by Dark Reality

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