Paramount hands the new Star Trek film to J.J. Abrams

So they're hoping to put Star Trek back on the map with SPOCK & KIRK: THE TEEN YEARS?

Ehh....

I hope Abrams knows what he's doing since this franchise is deader than dirt. Star Trek is one generous slice of hokey.

There's a real feeling of flogging a dead horse here.

I don't believe you can find someone suitable to hold the title of Young Shatner without delving into the dark recesses of genetic engineering.

I don't think the franchise is dead yet by a long shot, but it seems too soon to attempt a revival. Only 3 years since Nemesis, and 2(?) since Enterprise folded. Give it a few more years for people to wash the taste of shit out of their mouths. Maybe 2010. But given a good script, a young Kirk and Spock may not be a bad way to go. It's either them or a brand new set of characters, and the fans and general public aren't likely to shell out $10 (at least) to see an unknown, untried crew.

But I do think there's life in the beast yet.

Die quick... and don't prosper.

Young Kirk and Spock at the Academy? Roomies in Starfleet jammies? They could boldly go where no Mind Meld has gone before.

Horrible. They're wanking the last drops of worth out of Tiberius' name. Be creative. Dare something.

In the beginning, Star Trek was about exploring unknown territory - we wanna see that. Not vulcan babes with big titties, "funny talk" or the same enemies over and over again.

I'd say, give it a whole new realistic crew (no big titties) and make them explore some visually and gripping new worlds. Imagine CLIVE OWEN as the new captain. GOLD.

As a disillusioned ex-trekkie, I for one would be all over an original story with a new crew. I don't see how this is any better an idea than Enterprise was. Worse, in fact, since the actors are going to have to compete with the memories of the original actors.

Plus, this sounds like one of those fanboy-created rumors. When the cameras are rolling, I'll believe it. But I still won't like it.

Exactly. This prequel stuff is only for the hardcore fans. Something the Star Trek universe has less of than ever before.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but sorry, man, there's always a place for big titties.

A new series set far in the future would be a better route for Abrams. Not that I have anything against him making movies, but given his pedigree, he would do a good job getting me to actually watch a Startrek show again.

Edit: Can't get the image to load right.

Star Trek's universe, post-Shatner, always seemed a bizarrely sterile place. Maybe the last thing real trekkies want is reminders of sex?

This idea has been in circulation for fifteen years, since a STARFLEET ACADEMY picture was the main concept before they plumped for the tried and tested with STAR TREK VI.

I think it's an interesting idea, provided they get a good script and actors. Anything's better than trying to remake KHAN again.

I read a script review somewhere, it's basically Kirk not fitting in because he's such a hothead and Spock not fitting in because he's an alien. Of course they bond. Then they get left out of some training mission that goes wrong and have to enlist the help of Scotty to steal a ship and go help their fellow cadets. It sounds like Wrath of Khan meets Search for Spock, but the review did say it read better than my description sounds. I just think you're asking for trouble trying to find actors to portray younger versions of the characters.

What bothers me is that there are plenty of good stories they can tell with the Next Gen-era shows. Spock is still sitting there on Romulus, they never even touched Q in the movies, there were plenty of loose ends in the DS9 finale. And yet we got Insurrection and Nemesis, and now we're getting Starbase 90210.

I don't think it's a prequel. Seems like Paramount is pulling a Galactica and reboots its franchise.

So it's like SPACE CAMP with Klingons?

Or Dumb and Dumberer

Would they do that though? Ignoring a one-season show most people hate anyway is one thing, but recreating Trek from the ground up just seems an excuse. It certainly needs rejiggering and turning upside down a touch, but I don't think a total reboot is necessarily the right way to go.

Paramount simply won't let this lie low or even die. They missed a golden opportunity by letting the DS9 crew fade away. Young Kirk and Spock won't work if Abrams can do something else maybe there is potential but the well looks plenty dry at this point.

Paramount I think realizes that if they want newer generations of fans they are gonna have to keep the brand name going sadly they don't realize half baked flicks (Nemesis) and shows (Enterprise and Voyager) won't deliver.

That would be very cool. I can see him scoring some very serious alien poon-tang (a la Shatner). But he'd also have the whole ability to act thing going for him as well. Which puts him heads above both Shatner and Stewart.

Because it is so cool, it can therefore never happen.

10 to 1 Abrams pulls out the 'mysterious artifact' plot again.

Seriously. Shatner I can understand, although he can act when he wants to. But calling Stewart a bad actor is just wrong, trekkie-bait or otherwise.

Also, stop casting Clive Owen in everything. He's a great actor, of course, but he's becoming the new Bruce Campbell, and as shown in SIN CITY and KING ARTHUR, outside of reality, he doesn't usually work.

Stewart''s such a good actor he's a fucking thespian.

I think they threw out the script you're thinking of. I also heard Rick Berman has left the reservation, but haven't seen hard confirmation of that.

I would prefer a Next Gen story myself.

If I'm stuck serving on a spaceship thousdands of light years from home, there had better be chicks in form-fitting unitards with big titties. No titties=no travel.

Fixed.

That would be the best news of all. STAR TREK could still have been a thriving franchise if that fucking parasite hadn't drained it of all life.

I'd settle for just a good story.

I have faith in Abrams but not in this or any prequel concept. At its best, STAR TREK looks forward. I think it's time for another big jump forward in time and technology.

I agree about a big jump being needed. Start from scratch... but in a different way.

The problem with Trek is that its utopian view of the future doesn't hold a lot of sway in today's grim culture. And prequels featuring a young Kirk and Spock... well, let's just say Abrams has a his work really cut out for him.

I know Owen turned out quite stiff and pale in DERAILED, BEYOND BOARDERS and I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD... but take a closer look at him in CLOSER.

He was perfectly cocky and offensive in there. Stewart and Bakula were good "serious" frontmen, but what the ST world needs is another hotshot. Someone who risks anything, someone who gives a reason for babes with BIG TITTIES to be interested in him. Someone who doesn't wanna "talk it out" but fight it out.

Someone who doesn't look lame when fighting the bad guy. I want a badass Star Trek captain for my future kids to look up to.

Good news, if it's a Battlestar Galactica-like reboot. A straight up prequel would tie the hands of the creative team to an unreasonable extent. I don't want to see younger actors impersonating William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. I don't want to see intentionally retro special effects and set design. The original series will always be available. Let's see a new take on the characters and universe.

I think there is a huge difference in rebooting something as iconic as the Original Star Trek and rebooting a show that just lasted two seasons and did not have a huge following anyway.
I have to admit I am real skeptical of this idea. The casting will be a nightmare. And doing a prequel right after the fiasco of Enterprise seems to me to be really risky. JJ Abrams has done stuff I like but I don't know if he can pull this off.
I freely admit I am of the "Let the Franchise R.I.P for about ten years and then try something totally new" school, but I guess that Paramount could not resist milking the Cash Cow once again.
And the guy who said that Patrick Stewert could not act is stupid. I saw him on stage doing Ibsen in London, and Stewart was great.

There were times, and they were not few in number, when Stewart was the only thing that made The Next Generation watchable.

The only viable Trek franchise is my Star Trek/Star Wars mash-up I invented in high school. Paramount is fucked without me.

Well if they do this young Kirk and Spock, then they could bring in the crew from Enterprise, and maybe we'll find out what happened to them. Although...I wish to GOD that the Final Berman/Braga episode never existed.

But anyways, I think the perfect Trek movie would take a really good action/adventure script about ships at sea....or adapt a novel about it...and then having a trekkie go through and convert it to a star trek script.

That would be cool.

Seriously, how long have you been around the internet? Though maybe scant pieces of said script may be used, I don't think J.J. Abrrams is being brought in simply as the director. And also rather obviously, as a reboot - which Star Trek needs to survive - they need to sell it to the people who used to go "A Star Trek Movie might be fun" but because of the nebbishy badness of... oh, pretty much all of the next gen films (I'm including the beloved First Contact in that pile), they've going to go to the core of what made people love the show in the first place, and not chase after the maybe okay stuff from shows most people didn't enjoy. I'm not saying they're looking to alienate the core (though they might) but paying homage to the shows that drained much of the goodwill is probably the last thing on Abrams' mind. Going after Young Kirk and Spock may seem 90210-ish, but the ultimate goal of something like that, if that is what this is, is to be able to explore areas that the mainstream is interested in without ruining the canon too much. And maybe, hopefully, return the show to its lusty roots.

Uh...you do realize no one gave a flying fuck about Star Trek when it first came on the air. C'mon the damn thing was cancelled after like 3 seasons. Its main popularity came after syndication like Family Guy's did. People in the 70s getting stoned and tuning in.

It just became one of those cult things...like say...Firefly. The reason it was so appealing was the whole "discovery" bit. It was fun exploring the unknown and it it was fun doing it with a badass captain.

Add in some smart funny dialog and a running joke or two and it would be a good trek film.

Star Trek became more through syndication. Firefly did not. Star Trek was enough of a success that they were contemplating either a new show or a movie. They went movie after the success of Star Wars. So yes, I do know. People know Kirk. Spock. Bones, Etc. They don't know any of the spin off characters. Which is why the reboot will either completely abandon everything except the name, or focus on characters that people already love. Mostly because the lamer Trek shows were only appealing to the devotes. Having seen a couple episodes of Voyager and Enterprise, I'd agree with the decision to abandon them. Having seen all the Trek movies, rebooting the Next Gen stuff... that's what they tried and failed at with Nemesis.

I'm actually a fan of Nemesis. I believe it was one of the stronger stories to come from the Trek machine in some time. It failed because it was released one week before LOTR, not because it wasn't any good.

I love the idea of a Kirk - Spock story, it's an interesting concept. The difficulty is this. We all know what James T. Kirk and Spock look like when they were young, so they're gonna have to find actors who not only look just like both of them, but can act just like both of them as well.

We'll see...

Crappy movies aside, I think you underestimate the popularity of Next Gen. And I don't think the mainstream is going to want to watch The Young Kirk and Spock Chronicles.

Nemesis could have been released one week before From Justin to Kelly and it would have failed. It wasn't any good.

I second that. I'm not going to debate why it failed, but it certainly wasn't any good.

I don't think young Kirk & Spock is going to work either. The general public doesn't seem to be interested in Trek anymore. And without the general public, it isn't going to get off the ground. There aren't enough hardcore Trekkies in the world for a movie that appeals only to them to succeed.

The Trek films that worked and made money were the ones that not only tied into the mythology but were simply good stories as well. One hooks in the hardcore fans, the other hooks in the mass audience. Khan doesn't work if it's just a callback to "Space Seed." Voyage Home doesn't work without the juxtaposition. First Contact worked because it was basically an action film with the most recognizable Next Gen villains. Nemesis didn't work because it was too busy explaining all these new elements that none of the hardcore fans liked and none of the mainstream fans cared about.

At this point, with Gene dead, Paramount should go the BSG or M:I route and reboot Star Trek. The franchise suffers from the same condition as the old Marvel continuity. A re-imagining, as they call it, could work out pretty good. However, I wish Abrams all the luck in making humans with putty on their foreheads not seem hokey.

Next Gen may still have fans, but to reboot, I'm guessing they'd rather go after what makes Star Trek appealing to the people who still like the idea of it, but not what it's become. Next Gen has its fans, but I'm guessing they're not going to want to sequelize to a series of films that have diminishing returns. I'd rather it was a new thing, honestly, but... Next Gen is tainted by horrible films (at best a batting average of 1/4) and OS is not.

A "reboot" ain't gonna happen. The reason why Galactica had a successful reimagining is that the original BG has been out of the public mind for years. The series isn't in syndication anywhere, and there are no novels or games based on the original series. It had been effectively scrubbed from most people's minds, so when the new concepts were introduced it didn't clash with what most people knew about the old series.

Trek lives on in syndication. The movies are still shown reasonably often (Wrath of Khan was just on.) And novels are constantly being published, not to mention games (I think a Trek rpg is coming down the 'pike.) The concepts of the original Trek universe are very strong and fresh in people's minds, and given the universality of some concepts (warp drive, phasers, transporters) it will live in peoples minds and hearts for a long, long time in a way that Galactica never will. Even if Paramount wanted to reboot Trek, they couldn't.

What they can do, though, is the next Next Generation. TNG, DS9 & Voyager took place 80 or so years after the original series. TNG was launched with a cameo from Dr. McCoy, and original series characters showed up every now and then to aid in the appearance of a seamless universe. Paramount can reinvent Trek by thinking what it would be like 50 - 100 years after TNG & co. Come up with a script with themes relevant to today (not too hard given the charged and polarized political climate), have some very old faces from TNG & co. show up (maybe including the death of a major character like Data, Worf or 7of9), and end with a dynamic new crew. It could well work to bridge the old, beloved (but tired) Trek with new, compelling Trek.