Some Thoughts On Star Trek

A couple of things I ran across today about Star Trek reminded me that I ought to share my own thoughts on what needs to happen to revive the franchise.

First, is this story from the New York Post that is critical of the latest incarnation of Trek, Enterprise. It's important to remember that Paramount, the studio that makes ST, has a billion dollar cash cow on its hands. It simply can't turn that off. The shareholders would rebel. So, even in the face of the law of diminishing returns, they must soldier on.

One side note that struck me as I looked at the picture that accompanied the article. One of the many criticisms of previous Trek incarnations was that the jumpsuits they wore had no pockets. It always struck most folks as silly. Were do you put your hands? [The actors actually have to learn to stand with their hands out, believe it or not] Where do you put the little things you pick up in odd moments? Well, with Enterprise they consciously added pockets and zips to the uniforms, but you still don't see them use 'em!

Where does that come from? Read this probing and knowledgeable interview with former Trek writer and producer, Ron Moore. He gives a revealing look into the writing and production of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine (my favorite incarnation) and Voyager. It's long, but well worth your time. There will be a part two on Monday.

This quote from Moore explains a lot of why Trek sucks so much these days:

To an extent. I think it was more like the notes tended to become more conservative. "Don't take as many chances." "Be safer." "Don't go out on a limb with this." "Be careful we still like the character." "Don't let the character make too many mistakes." "Don't get too crazy with the ideas." They were just always conservative. You were always pulling back from something. You were never given a note saying, "Go farther. Go wilder. This needs to be more shocking." It was always "Pull it back. Be safer." Even in humor, "It's too funny." "It's too much of a joke." It was always make it smaller, make it more subtle… just play it safe.

If I suddenly replaced Rick Berman as head of Trek? I would radically rethink the format. No more series for the time being. Instead, I would completely overhaul the whole production department. To begin, I'd plan on a quarterly schedule of two-hour television movies, one a season. After the system had been running a while, I'd then make it a monthly movie.

Star Trek has the richest mythology of any modern tale. Only J.R.R. Tolkien comes close. ST has a history that extends from the Atomic Wars of the alternate-late-Sixties to the time travellers of the 29th century. We have, literally, a whole galaxy to work in and only a small fraction of that has been explored. Some of that exploration consists of a mere line of dialogue in one episode! There are hundreds of worlds and cultures that have already been mentioned; thousands of characters have been written. Fans have clamored for decades for a revisiting of some of those places and people.

The possibilities are unbounded. Young Sarek? Young Kirk? Starfleet Academy? The Bajoran-Cardassian War? A Klingon opera in the original Klingon? The story of the Romulans? A comedy? A war story? A love story? It's all out there, waiting.

Open the franchise to outsiders. Any number of science-fiction writers have licked their lips at the idea of writing for Trek. Some of the best episodes ever were written by outsiders: Ellison's "City On The Edge Of Forever," Gerrold's "The Trouble With Tribbles." Let fresh viewpoints in, fresh ideas, new spins on old ideas. There are any number of social issues to explore in the guise of Trek, scientific puzzles to solve.

Each movie has its own team overseeing it. You already have the make-up and wardrobe and design departments in place. You can farm out the opticals and special effects to companies around town. Let in new writers, but pair them with in-house production to keep the "Trek" factor in place. Each production is independent but overseen by a meta-production office.

Then you can crank out a dazzling array of Trek. A young-adult Starfleet Academy comedy one month. A Romulan spy thriller the next. Then a starship crew on a mission the next. Then a biographic tale of one important character. Constantly fresh, constantly changing. A real sense of wonder returns. If something catches the public's fancy, you can either make another movie to test the waters, or consider it for a new series. But most importantly, you let grown-ups in. Let writers tell the tale as it needs to be told, not within some guidelines that bleed the vitality from the story.

It would be an audacious concept, one that I think might work. Trek has forty years of audience attachment built in, so you have a huge pool of viewers waiting to be tapped. They would be the ones to support something like this. I think this is the direction to go.