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Originally posted by The White Whale:
I've always partitioned Star Trek in the realm of science-fiction-best-enjoyed-when-you-don't-think-about-it-too-hard.
A lot of the science is made up, and you have to stretch your imagination a little more to suspend your disbelief for almost everything Star Trek does. I read somewhere that Star Trek is best thought of as a religion, where its followers will support it no matter how awful some portions of it can be.

OSC, on the other hand, manages to suspend my disbelief every time with little to no stretching of my imagination.

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Originally posted by Storm Saxon:

"Ladies, I don't think it's appropriate for me to engage in any alien friskiness while Mrs. Kirk and my 12 kids are waiting for me on Earth."

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Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
 
OSC generally has a low opinion of franchise-based shared universes, if I'm not mistaken. Even if he is allowed to start a new offshoot from scratch, there are countless limitations on a ST screenwriter. And if the film/series does break with the pattern, Paramount will be worried about upsetting fans.

I guess the question is, will OSC's enthusiasm for writing quality screenplays for film outweigh his distaste for the many limitations which will be implicit in a ST film/series?
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
I think that OSC would be more willing to create his own television series than any already franchise based. Just think: Forget about Enders Game the Movie. How about Enders Game the Series? Perhaps it could be set after the Bugger War and during the time of the great genius wars.
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 

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Originally posted by Occasional:
I think that OSC would be more willing to create his own television series than any already franchise based. Just think: Forget about Enders Game the Movie. How about Enders Game the Series? Perhaps it could be set after the Bugger War and during the time of the great genius wars.

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Originally posted by johnsonweed:
This is precisely why I think he would be such a breath of fresh air. He could elevate the story like Harlon Ellison did with the orginial series.

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I also believe the original Star Trek was badly acted and took place within a foolishly conceived fictional universe - but I also believe that it doesn't matter enough for grownups to spend time talking about it.
Statement of Beliefs - By Orson Scott Card

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I can't find the link, but from what I remember of Mr. Card's most recent rant on Star Trek, he really hated the way the focus of the shows was always on a very few members of the senior staff, who always seemed to do absolutely everything. All the junior-grade guys ever got to do was die. Plus, he really hated a lot of the acting styles exhibited. And I think he probably didn't like a a lot of other things, which I've forgotten about, too. Basically, he thought it was a bit silly, and he wasn't wrong. But I think that the trick with liking Star Trek is to know how silly and unlikely and impossible it is, and not to care.

Not that ST doesn't need a rehaul these days. Bring on the darkness and the creepy, and more of the funny too, I say. And I'd actually like to see more of the lower rank people involved, or a smaller ship with less crew, where there was a reason why no-one else ever got a look in. We need something which updates the show, improves on its foundations, and makes it what the other Star Trek shows were always aspiring to be. But Mr. Card isn't the guy to do it - if he even wanted to be involved with TV, which I very much doubt.

Plus, that would mean he would be too busy to write anymore books, which would be a shame, IMO.

Though an Alvin Maker series would rock. Maybe a Steven Spielberg style big budget nine hour mini-series?
 

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Posted by B34N (Member # 9597) on :
 

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Originally posted by The White Whale:
I've always partitioned Star Trek in the realm of science-fiction-best-enjoyed-when-you-don't-think-about-it-too-hard.
A lot of the science is made up, and you have to stretch your imagination a little more to suspend your disbelief for almost everything Star Trek does. I read somewhere that Star Trek is best thought of as a religion, where its followers will support it no matter how awful some portions of it can be.

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Actually when Rodenberry was alive the series always had NASA advisors to help with terms and possible technologies from what I have seen in BTS stuff.

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Originally posted by Magson:
You may be confusing ST with Babylon 5 -- they worked pretty closely with NASA and JPL from the get go. I never have heard of ST using a NASA advisor.

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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Actually when Rodenberry was alive the series always had NASA advisors to help with terms and possible technologies from what I have seen in BTS stuff.

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Sources?

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it's in some of the behind the scene stuff on the new limited edition DVDs. Don't know the exact one off hand, I'm thinking Nemesis but probably wrong. I also think there is something about it in one of the technical journals which I no longer have so I could be wrong on that one. If someone has Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise or TNG Tech Manual I think it was in one of those. I also remember something about the cast being on hand for the unvieling of the Enterprise space shuttle so they definitely had fans if not advisors at NASA. Sorry I don't have anything concrete but I'm not in school any more and really don't worry about providing sources for things?
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 

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Originally posted by B34N:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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Actually when Rodenberry was alive the series always had NASA advisors to help with terms and possible technologies from what I have seen in BTS stuff.

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Sources?

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Sorry I don't have anything concrete but I.......really don't worry about providing sources for things?

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How have you survived here since July with that attitude?


 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
I'll ask about it when I get the chance.

Occasional, I've never been able to get into Lost at all. I think Battlestar Galactica is about as many plots as I can follow in a series. I get annoyed when I can't miss a show and still have an idea of what's going on the next week.

-pH
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 

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I'm not in school any more and really don't worry about providing sources for things?

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Originally posted by rivka:
Considering that OSC has said some fairly negative things about Star Trek, I sincerely hope he is never offered "a crack at" it.

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I have to disagree with Card and Bella B. I loved the original ST from the very moment I saw it as a kid. As an adult I still love the show, other than a few really bad ones.

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Actually Occasional, on that point, you and me, we agree.
I was raised on Star Trek and I've always loved all the shows, except that last one, which I gave up on when it seemed to have run out of steam. The negative opinions I was putting forward were what I remembered of Card's, not my own.

But a few years ago no-one would have thought that a show set in this universe could be cancelled. The fact that ’Enterprise’ was, suggests that something has gone very wrong - plus the last movie didn‘t exactly set the box office on fire. So someone needs to take a good hard look at what the problems are, and fix them - but I wouldn’t want them to gut out the original premise and atmosphere of the universe.

As for learning hundreds of names, yeah, I wouldn’t want to do that either. Though I do have the opposite problem with Lost - I don’t have trouble remembering the names of Our Heroes, but I hate that there are meant to be about forty other nameless people on this desert island, who never even seem to interact with Our Heroes and never seem to do anything at all - they don‘t change anything, they don‘t provide services, they just stand around chatting - if we even see them at all. At least on Star Trek the red shirts had a purpose. Why didn’t the showrunners just kill off everyone else except the main characters? [/rant]
But that problem is partly because of the isolated nature of Lost - on Star Trek people should be arriving and leaving a ship or spacestation regularly, so that wouldn’t be such an issue.

DS9 managed to incorporate about double the amount of secondary and tertiary characters that the other shows had, without ever confusing me. I’d like to see a couple of Ensign Ricky’s out there, named people I sort of knew from a distance (if you can‘t remember the name, you might remember the face), who might be killed off every now and then, whose death I could actually feel a little sad about without it ruining the atmosphere of the show. It’s a personal preference, but I think having recurring background characters adds a veneer of reality to a show and can bring out interesting elements in the main characters, too.

Card’s main problem with it was that he couldn’t see a captain going on away missions, kicking alien butt etc, when he’d have people to do that for him. But that’s never bothered me - it’s just part of the silly (along with time travel, transporters and holodecks) which you accept with the package because the whole is good fun. Pretty much all speculative stories, be they books, tv shows, movies, have ridiculous elements about them - I could accept the silly on Star Trek without it spoiling my enjoyment, OSC couldn’t. Which is perfectly fair enough.

However, I certainly don't think that adding more tertiary characters would bring in thousands of new fans. It's a case of needing people with imagination and exerting quality control, and having someone who passionately cares about making a new show succeed - and that doesn't seem to have been happening recently.
 

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Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
 
Card doesn't hate "Captains and most important crew members get their hands dirty" SF on that basis alone...note his embracing of the Firefly/Serenity universe. He just wants said fictional universe to seem consistent, and for their to be an internal set of rules for the obviously fictional stuff.

Face it, in Star Trek (much as I loved certain episodes of TOS and TNG) the rules change from episode to episode.
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
"So someone needs to take a good hard look at what the problems are, and fix them"

I can tell you exactly what was wrong, at least from my point of view and the reason I lost interest. All the stories were the same as we have seen in the ST Universe a thousand times before, and usually better written. Enterprise had the ability to be a show about the development of the Federation. Instead it was OST lite. The ST X movie had the ability to become an epic, but ended up a simple patchwork adventure story. They don't need a change. They need an expansion into uncharted story ideas and grander vistas.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Actually, the main problem with Enterprise was that it causally (and for no particularly good reason) violated canon (and fairly established fanon, but that's another story) right and left. That alienated a good part of their established fan base early on.

Throw in increasingly ridiculous time-travel-related stuff, and the surprising part is how long the show lasted.

A shame, really. I adore Scott Bakula, and really wanted to like the show.
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
Yea, rivka, the violation of canon was another reason I lost interest. However, it wasn't the main problem for me. I guess I believe in "open canon" as long as everything else is working. Nothing else was.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
I must say if I had a choice of ST or Babylon 5, B5 ftw.

Enterprise however was a good series, there were no casaulity errors I could see, name three.

*if you mention the NX-01 Enterprise I'll kill you*
 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 

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Originally posted by rivka:
Actually, the main problem with Enterprise was that it causally (and for no particularly good reason) violated canon (and fairly established fanon, but that's another story) right and left. That alienated a good part of their established fan base early on.

Throw in increasingly ridiculous time-travel-related stuff, and the surprising part is how long the show lasted.

A shame, really. I adore Scott Bakula, and really wanted to like the show.

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It didn't even LOOK Star Trek to me. Really. I don't know if it was the set or how it was filmed or what, but it was like, "One of these things is not like the others..."

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Originally posted by Lyrhawn:

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Originally posted by B34N:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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Actually when Rodenberry was alive the series always had NASA advisors to help with terms and possible technologies from what I have seen in BTS stuff.

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Sources?

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Sorry I don't have anything concrete but I.......really don't worry about providing sources for things?

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How have you survived here since July with that attitude?

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I won't really I've survived I guess maybe endured would be a better descriptor. That and I use a lot of Graemlins.
 

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Posted by B34N (Member # 9597) on :
 

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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It didn't even LOOK Star Trek to me. Really. I don't know if it was the set or how it was filmed or what, but it was like, "One of these things is not like the others..."

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To me, that worked in its favor.

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My main problem with the (newer) movies is the director, Johnathan Frakes. I like him in front of the camera, but behind it he sux monkey parts. His camera work reeks of effort, his pacing is a joke and his character development is heavy handed.

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Originally posted by Euripides:
My favourites were Insurrection and First Contact. I see Insurrection as a sort of epitomy of Star Trek didactic plot structure.

B34N,

Not clean? I thought DS9 was grittier than Enterprise, at least visually. Archer's ship looked pretty clean to me.

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DS9 was on a Cardasian Space Station of course it is going to look a little dingy. But the Defiant was spotless and so was most of the station with the exception of some areas.

I never really group DS9 with the rest of the ST series. It is kind of in a world its own just cause it was so much better than the rest and mostly on a station not in a ship.

I disagree, Archer's ship was pretty clean in Season 1 and 2 but for the rest of the series that I remember it was constantly dinged up from battle. Plus it was a much darker atmosphere in some areas as opposed to the other series.

But all this is just my personal opinion not hard fact or anything so it is completely open and I do agree that at times DS9 was darker but that's just cause it's the best series.

PS: Frakes is a pretty good Director and I thought Nemesis was pretty good but poorly executed. There were a lot of bad things in it, like Data's shotty makeup and some bad acting by that clone Piccard but I thought the story line was pretty good!

Back to the topic: I think if OSC was to write like a precursor to Enterprise kind of like right after Zefram Cochran does his little warp trip it would rock but won't happen.
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
Frakes didn't direct Nemesis, Stuard Baird did.
 

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Posted by B34N (Member # 9597) on :
 
I know I condensed two points into one sentence.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Lyrhawn- Think in terms of character, First Contact was far and away the very best of the next generation. It was most like Deep Space Nine, in that it actually allowed captain Picard to be really troubled, and to actually be the bad guy for once. Kirk, though he was noble, was also unfair and made mistakes, but Picard was always more reserved, and predictably perfect. In First Contact, he loses it a little, and it makes him a much more interesting character, kind of like the Borg were his "Khan!!!!" He even has a scene much like that... "No!!!!!" "You Broke you're little ships."

Also, the plot with Data and the Borg Queen was great, and they didn't focus too much on what didn't work, which was the Zephram Cochrane part of the movie (not the best part, but okay). Also, First Contact had more one liners than most Next Generation movies were willing to do. Can you remember more than a few one-liners from any of the other movies? I can remember a bunch from First Contact, and many from the TOS movies, but not the others.

You get Worf saying: "Perhaps today IS a good day to die," and "If you were any other man I would KILL you where you stand."

"Borg, sounds Swedish"

"I don't want to spend time arguing about time... we don't have the time."

"Don't try to be a great man, just be a man"

"Resistance is Futile!" -Data

"The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"

And I keep thinking of more- it was just a very well written movie.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Lyrhawn- Think in terms of character, First Contact was far and away the very best of the next generation. It was most like Deep Space Nine, in that it actually allowed captain Picard to be really troubled, and to actually be the bad guy for once. Kirk, though he was noble, was also unfair and made mistakes, but Picard was always more reserved, and predictably perfect. In First Contact, he loses it a little, and it makes him a much more interesting character, kind of like the Borg were his "Khan!!!!" He even has a scene much like that... "No!!!!!" "You Broke you're little ships."

Also, the plot with Data and the Borg Queen was great, and they didn't focus too much on what didn't work, which was the Zephram Cochrane part of the movie (not the best part, but okay). Also, First Contact had more one liners than most Next Generation movies were willing to do. Can you remember more than a few one-liners from any of the other movies? I can remember a bunch from First Contact, and many from the TOS movies, but not the others.

You get Worf saying: "Perhaps today IS a good day to die," and "If you were any other man I would KILL you where you stand."

"Borg, sounds Swedish"

"I don't want to spend time arguing about time... we don't have the time."

"Don't try to be a great man, just be a man"

"Resistance is Futile!" -Data

"The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"

And I keep thinking of more- it was just a very well written movie.
 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
"It's my first ray gun."

-pH
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Generations is still my favorite. It's the end of the era, the death of Enterprise-D, and all that.

Plus the scene where Data is searching for life forms and singing his little "I just, love searching for life forms. Life-forms, you tiny little life-forms, you precious little life-forms, where, are, you?" With the music from the console is the best Star Trek scene ever for me. Actually all the Data comedy from that movie is my favorite.

First Contact is very much unlike TNG, and you're right in calling it a DS9 like quality, it's rougher around the edges, far less reserved.

But it too DOES have some really great lines.

"I picked a hell of a day to quit drinkin'"

Generations has sentimental value I suppose, but both were fantastic, and I suppose as a standalone, FC was the greater of the two.

Both were utterly fantastic to see at a midnight showing in the theater, where the fans cheered every name and every great one liner on the screen.
 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
I LOVE Data's life forms song. I used to have it as one of the sounds for my old desktop.

-pH
 

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