Em what?
Ciaphas Cain, Ibraim Gaunt etc ring a bell? The Byzantine nature of the Imperium, the Horus Heresy, the Adeptus Astartes, the Tyranid wars. But that's for another thread.
You in charge of Star Trek: The Original Series
- Thread starter Landshark
- Start date
Em what?
Ciaphas Cain, Ibraim Gaunt etc ring a bell? The Byzantine nature of the Imperium, the Horus Heresy, the Adeptus Astartes, the Tyranid wars. But that's for another thread.
What I meant was that ST has a focused group of memorable characters that we can follow, and its universe actually has some progress, for better or for worse, whereas 40k just stays the same so that GW can sell more models. But anyway, I'm digressing. It seems to me that you missed my actual point--put yourself in the mindset of the sixties. At that time, nobody wants depressing and grimdark TV. That's what made Star Trek popular. Maybe now, in these more cynical times, but if you had viewers having constant grim cyniscism shoved in their faces back then on TV they'd go 'fuck this!' and change the cannel.
1. Rescue Clint Eastwood from Spaghetti Westerns and make him Captain of the Enterprise
2. Star Fleet uniforms for all males to comprise short cut tops and ballet tights (tights colours to denote standing similar to tops in TOS)
3. Cliffhangers
4. All villains to be played by non-American actors.
2. Star Fleet uniforms for all males to comprise short cut tops and ballet tights (tights colours to denote standing similar to tops in TOS)
3. Cliffhangers
4. All villains to be played by non-American actors.
My 2 cents
I loved Trek TOS as a kid. As an adult I like it because it was step in the right direction. SF that has some element of social commentary. Wow!
It's Mildly Military structure and purpose was interesting but somewhat unsatisfactory to me as I got older once I served in the US Navy and got a taste for how a navy operates.
The command team going on away missions? Nope. IRL they'd send ratings/marines with an NCO in charge. The diplomatic functions you'd have Kirk & Co circulating about, but not on first contact.
After Babylon 5, I really like the idea of a series bible for writers to get a real continuous feel for the milieu than the grab-bag of stuff that came out because Gene & Co were soliciting and producing stories from a lot of SF authors and didn't know if they'd be back next season or not. Any sense of continuity is thanks to a buttload of retconning and ex post facto editorial choices as to what's canon and not.
Everyone's already chimed in about the lack of diversity in ship's crew. It'd have been nice to have more say, Andorians and Tellarites as ongoing characters, as well non-Anglo males. SFX budget and network nervousness killed that. Gene & Co. pushed it as far as they felt they could. The pilot with Captain Pike and his female first officer was a fresh idea. Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand, and Lt. Uhura could have been a lot less stereotypical female roles. Captain Janeway and Voyager were what, thirty years after TOS aired?
As to the milieu of the Federation, they rarely went into how the Federation came to be and how it really worked. The Enterprise had some basic ROE and Prime Directive and turned loose on an unsuspecting galaxy. All that was way above their paygrade. Their actions reflected Federation biases and priorities, but YMMV how obvious it was and properly lampshaded.
I heartily agree the Planet of Hats approach was lazy writing, but
TV series have very harsh time/budget constraints until they've proven out over five seasons or so, and even then, there's the trade-off you have to make of focusing on something complex (what it takes to write, set up the scene while filming, do the scene, edit) and moving on to the next scene.
In short, a series bible would've really helped. Thoughts about the Federation, Starfleet, structure, purpose, and history would've been nice to have fully fleshed out beforehand and elaborated on in various episodes. A more diverse cast would've pointed up how much of a political miracle it was the Federation existed, much less functioned.
As to more military details, I feel that probably wasn't the way to go.
After reading of Captain Cook's expeditions-- you had a sense they weren't there to do more than survey, defend themselves, and come back with some useful data. Plus, the sense of peril involved was worlds apart from TOS. In the Vietnam War era, there was considerable skepticism of the military and its mission.
I loved Trek TOS as a kid. As an adult I like it because it was step in the right direction. SF that has some element of social commentary. Wow!
It's Mildly Military structure and purpose was interesting but somewhat unsatisfactory to me as I got older once I served in the US Navy and got a taste for how a navy operates.
The command team going on away missions? Nope. IRL they'd send ratings/marines with an NCO in charge. The diplomatic functions you'd have Kirk & Co circulating about, but not on first contact.
After Babylon 5, I really like the idea of a series bible for writers to get a real continuous feel for the milieu than the grab-bag of stuff that came out because Gene & Co were soliciting and producing stories from a lot of SF authors and didn't know if they'd be back next season or not. Any sense of continuity is thanks to a buttload of retconning and ex post facto editorial choices as to what's canon and not.
Everyone's already chimed in about the lack of diversity in ship's crew. It'd have been nice to have more say, Andorians and Tellarites as ongoing characters, as well non-Anglo males. SFX budget and network nervousness killed that. Gene & Co. pushed it as far as they felt they could. The pilot with Captain Pike and his female first officer was a fresh idea. Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand, and Lt. Uhura could have been a lot less stereotypical female roles. Captain Janeway and Voyager were what, thirty years after TOS aired?
As to the milieu of the Federation, they rarely went into how the Federation came to be and how it really worked. The Enterprise had some basic ROE and Prime Directive and turned loose on an unsuspecting galaxy. All that was way above their paygrade. Their actions reflected Federation biases and priorities, but YMMV how obvious it was and properly lampshaded.
I heartily agree the Planet of Hats approach was lazy writing, but
TV series have very harsh time/budget constraints until they've proven out over five seasons or so, and even then, there's the trade-off you have to make of focusing on something complex (what it takes to write, set up the scene while filming, do the scene, edit) and moving on to the next scene.
In short, a series bible would've really helped. Thoughts about the Federation, Starfleet, structure, purpose, and history would've been nice to have fully fleshed out beforehand and elaborated on in various episodes. A more diverse cast would've pointed up how much of a political miracle it was the Federation existed, much less functioned.
As to more military details, I feel that probably wasn't the way to go.
After reading of Captain Cook's expeditions-- you had a sense they weren't there to do more than survey, defend themselves, and come back with some useful data. Plus, the sense of peril involved was worlds apart from TOS. In the Vietnam War era, there was considerable skepticism of the military and its mission.
Ming777
Monthly Donor
Perhaps we could leave TOS mostly as OTL except removing the exceptionally bad episodes and maintaining some continuity of technology.
What would be a better way to improve the franchise is to change the Roddenberry peiod of TNG, which was far worse in terms of being an ultra-hippie, overly Utopian society.
Changes:
-Expand a bit more on the structure of Star Fleet and the UFP
-Create a more realistic economy (like someone previously said; everyone has a decent free standard of living, everything else needs credits)
-be more consistent with terminology and technology (ie, warp core breaches remains a rare event. Vessel destruction usually entails structural integrity field failure)
-develop all major cast backgrounds
but most of all
-reduce the Wesley to a minor character who eventually leaves for the academy by season 3, or just writing him out completely.
What would be a better way to improve the franchise is to change the Roddenberry peiod of TNG, which was far worse in terms of being an ultra-hippie, overly Utopian society.
Changes:
-Expand a bit more on the structure of Star Fleet and the UFP
-Create a more realistic economy (like someone previously said; everyone has a decent free standard of living, everything else needs credits)
-be more consistent with terminology and technology (ie, warp core breaches remains a rare event. Vessel destruction usually entails structural integrity field failure)
-develop all major cast backgrounds
but most of all
-reduce the Wesley to a minor character who eventually leaves for the academy by season 3, or just writing him out completely.
Yeah, but there are sound narrative reasons to do so. Focusing on the command crew means that you have a relatively limited "constant" cast, meaning that you can save money and really develop the hell out of those characters. If you instead had an away team and a seperate command crew, that means that you're writing for potentially twice as many characters. Of course, you *could* have the focus actually be on the low-ranking away team, rather than the command crew...hmmm...
Unfortunately, TV in the '60s didn't allow for that. Adding a lot more callbacks and inserting trans-episode continuity is about the best you can do, I think.
Yeah, but at least you can make them behave a little more militarily, right? You don't really (and if other people are right, can't really) go into the details, but you could make it reasonably clear that this is a mixed civilian-military mission (perhaps there's a bunch of Federation scientists and diplomats onboard? With then the main characters all being military.)
These are horrible, horrible, horrible ideas. Using non-humanoid aliens and non-FTL travel will totally break your budget and the viewer's minds. I'd be surprised if you even sold the series with that. You can make things a bit more realistic, but under the limitations you are suffering under in late '60s US TV, you can't go all diamond-hard--it just won't work.
One other thing I would definitely do, no matter what, following BlackWave and DValdron here, would be to hold on to the core concept of optimism in TOS. That's a huge part of what's made the show so appealing for so long - the idea that things will get better for humanity, that we'll get through our current messes on Earth and make it to the stars - and it's something that fans of Trek can agree on no matter their political viewpoints.
I'd keep the primary-color uniform tunics for day-to-day shipboard work, but use field jackets for planetary expeditions (such as you saw in "The Cage"/"Menagerie" and The Wrath of Khan), and fancier dress uniforms that paid more tribute to Starfleet's naval heritage.
I strongly recommend the book Inside Star Trek by Herbert Solow and Robert Justman. Between them, the two men pretty much ran Trek's production side (Solow, a NBC executive, took care of administration and finance, and Justman oversaw day-to-day production), and they give tons of information on the challenges involved in making the show and how they were overcome. Having more non-humanoid aliens is nice, for example, but it's just not going to happen given budgetary realities; even the more elaborate makeup jobs took a lot of money and trouble (the book talks about just how difficult it was to create pointed-ear "appliances" that Leonard Nimoy could wear comfortably). Kitbashing is also not the most optimal solution to the problem of devising new ships for Starfleet, but at that time, it's the most practical and cheapest one, so as head honcho on the show, I'm going to have to strike the same kind of balance Roddenberry & Co. did between what was wanted and what was feasible/affordable.
I'd certainly find a way to fit both of Starfleet's primary missions - defense of the Federation and scientific exploration - into its charter. There's no reason why the primary mission of the Enterprise and her sisters, to quote the famous intro, couldn't still be, in peacetime, "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before", but, when hostile alien polities threatened, to become to keep and defend the peace. It'd be worth emphasizing, if Starfleet's military role was played up more, that it was a defensive force rather than an offensive force - or, to quote Captain Pike in the 2009 reboot, "a humanitarian and peacekeeping armada". I like that; non-aggressive and peace-loving at core, but always ready to repel aggressors with overwhelming force if necessary.
I'd keep the primary-color uniform tunics for day-to-day shipboard work, but use field jackets for planetary expeditions (such as you saw in "The Cage"/"Menagerie" and The Wrath of Khan), and fancier dress uniforms that paid more tribute to Starfleet's naval heritage.
I strongly recommend the book Inside Star Trek by Herbert Solow and Robert Justman. Between them, the two men pretty much ran Trek's production side (Solow, a NBC executive, took care of administration and finance, and Justman oversaw day-to-day production), and they give tons of information on the challenges involved in making the show and how they were overcome. Having more non-humanoid aliens is nice, for example, but it's just not going to happen given budgetary realities; even the more elaborate makeup jobs took a lot of money and trouble (the book talks about just how difficult it was to create pointed-ear "appliances" that Leonard Nimoy could wear comfortably). Kitbashing is also not the most optimal solution to the problem of devising new ships for Starfleet, but at that time, it's the most practical and cheapest one, so as head honcho on the show, I'm going to have to strike the same kind of balance Roddenberry & Co. did between what was wanted and what was feasible/affordable.
I'd certainly find a way to fit both of Starfleet's primary missions - defense of the Federation and scientific exploration - into its charter. There's no reason why the primary mission of the Enterprise and her sisters, to quote the famous intro, couldn't still be, in peacetime, "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before", but, when hostile alien polities threatened, to become to keep and defend the peace. It'd be worth emphasizing, if Starfleet's military role was played up more, that it was a defensive force rather than an offensive force - or, to quote Captain Pike in the 2009 reboot, "a humanitarian and peacekeeping armada". I like that; non-aggressive and peace-loving at core, but always ready to repel aggressors with overwhelming force if necessary.
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Wasn't there one?
Horrible idea. Who was it who said that (paraphrased) if a show about a starship on the ragged edge of space needs a holodeck for interesting stories, the show is in trouble?
The holodeck is a retarded idea, anyway, for two reasons.
1) If the holodeck is a source of threats (rogue AIs trying to take over the ship, people trapped inside, whatever), I'm sorry. Holodeck discontinued.
2) If the holodeck essentially has sentient people in it (Looking at you, Lea Brahams), why do live people need to crew starship?
Agreed re: holodeck. I've always thought the holodeck provided a cheap out for TNG writers who couldn't think of a story idea, so instead they decided to write about, "What goes wrong on the holodeck this week?" Jean-Luc should have had the damned thing torn out and replaced with a bowling alley long ago.
Actually, IIRC, the animated series (yes, I KNOW it was declared non-canonical. So sue me. I personally consider it canonical.
) postulated that the Enterprise had a recreational facility which was basically an earlier version of the holodeck, and that it caused a LOT of trouble in one episode where the ship's computer essentially got virus-infected. That facility also showed up in the blueprint set, published at the same time as the Technical Manual.
Actually, IIRC, the animated series (yes, I KNOW it was declared non-canonical. So sue me. I personally consider it canonical.
) postulated that the Enterprise had a recreational facility which was basically an earlier version of the holodeck, and that it caused a LOT of trouble in one episode where the ship's computer essentially got virus-infected. That facility also showed up in the blueprint set, published at the same time as the Technical Manual.the_lyniezian
Banned
I'm sure I sort-of-suggested that somewhere.
I was thinking about the non-human-aliens bit, and I'm sure you could have some tricks to try and avoid it- like the salt-vampire thing that uses shape-shifting or suggestion to break down people's defences and feed of them, say, or otherwise. That way you can use human actors without having to even use prosthetics, or bloke-in-a-monster-suit (which looks silly given the production standards of the time). It's also why I suggested using the remnants of earlier human attempts to explore space, which somehow got lost or went wrong. You could also have a greater proportion of episodes dealing with occurrances on board ship, which don't have anything to do with aliens or planets. (Maybe where an early holodeck comes in!)
Then again, with all this it might get either very samey or turn viewers off- they're probably used to aliens being out there, or seeing them in science fiction. Too much of a genre rule that might be difficult to break.
Also, yes, maybe the time dilation thing might screw with people's minds a bit, but it probably won't matter out in space. After all, suposing you're going to be spending years out in space on long journeys anyway, it may not matter 'til you actually get back to Earth- you could sort of leave it as an unanswered plot device until some sort of closing episode where they make it back to Earth.
Then again, as you say, we are dealing with '60s US TV here. If they didn't like The Cage, they sure as beep won't like that idea. Which is why I said "I'd be tempted" and "messing around with things too much might not make for a good series".
One thing I'd definitely avoid is having the centrifugal effect of a rotating spaceship as in 2001: A Space Oddysey: but I thought, that's partly as it's too expensive and not within TV budget constraints. And I thought: there must be some things worth keeping from the original pilot as they obviously want to commission a new one, and the basic spaceship design might well be one. Doesn't really work.
One thing I would really like to do with hindsight is not have all the computers have meaningless blinking lights, and actually have something resembling proper displays all the way through, even if they in practice only appear static on-set. But, since it's not the ASB forum, I don't think we'd really permit that sort of hindsight, working with the assummption that we're pretending to be actual 1960s American TV producers.
That could break the budget too- under the contracts with the assorted unions that provided the set people, any display/computer thing that wasn't a 'painting' or a set of blinking lights required its own projector with its own operator- that's why the tv-like overhead display screens above the consoles along the bulkheads showed the exact same thing throughout the series.
the_lyniezian
Banned
That's the sort of thing I was implying. Just have more of them, without the silly blinking lights.
Again, though, it's probably not the sort of thing you'd have thought of in the 1960s.
(At least they got rid of the silly printouts from the original pilot in the main series, though in retrospect, it might have made more sense at the time. Or not.)
Actually, the solution to the overhead display problem is simple. Change them from episode to episode. They can stay static _within_ the episode, but change them between installments. That way, you don't have to deal with the operator expense, but the images change with sufficient frequency that most people will be satisfied, certainly in the context of 1960's TV.
Have you read about the trouble they had when they hired
Harlan Ellison?
Interesting story about that. It's not actually realistic for a man with green blood to have green skin; we have bright red blood after all yet even the people with the least melanin blocking the way have only very pale orange skin as the merest suggestion of the red inside. (Also, someone pointed out later on that given Vulcan's baking hot desert terrain wouldn't it make more sense for most of them to be black - hence Tuvok as a belated nod to that). Now, TOS did give Spock yellowish skin to reflect his green blood, which is realistic. However, this isn't always obvious because there were crossed wires between the makeup and SFX departments - Leonrd Nimoy would painstakingly apply yellow makeup, and then the SFX people kept thinking it was a lighting error and carefully 'correct' it back to a normal human skin tone
That's one good thing Enterprize did....
I'm sure he meant that...
If Doctor Who could do it regularly and on a shoestring budget, I think Star Trek could manage something.
Audience share and production costs are concepts that don't exist on your planet, I see.
The "not humans with putty on their noses" thing is a fair charge, though, because there should be some further differences than just the oddly-shaped nose -- even if it's just oddly coloured skin and/or hair. It's fine to be close to human, but when the only difference is the nose or the ears it's too close.
That's one of the only things that annoys me about Deep Space Nine. There are a hell of a lot of Bajorans in it, and all of them are entirely human-looking except for their nose ridges. Hell, the Centauri in Babylon 5 were the most human-looking alien race of all of them, and at least they had hair that grows upwards and six dicks.
That's one of the only things that annoys me about Deep Space Nine. There are a hell of a lot of Bajorans in it, and all of them are entirely human-looking except for their nose ridges. Hell, the Centauri in Babylon 5 were the most human-looking alien race of all of them, and at least they had hair that grows upwards and six dicks.
Wow what is all this lame talk about marines and military Structure in star trek the show about space explorers members of the Federation.
Fail serious Fail and I'm glad none of you were around to ruin the spirit of Trek because it seems none of you quite got what made the show great.(Earth is not the Earth your from their culture is not your culture)
So I'll simply say this 99% of what your all suggesting would of made star trek a dam flop flip on and forget it show.
Fail serious Fail and I'm glad none of you were around to ruin the spirit of Trek because it seems none of you quite got what made the show great.(Earth is not the Earth your from their culture is not your culture)
So I'll simply say this 99% of what your all suggesting would of made star trek a dam flop flip on and forget it show.
That is a reason for refraining from making the "holodeck gone awry" episodes, not to keep from using a holodeck at all.
The holodeck Leah Brahams was just an AI. There is no scientific proof that an AI able to pass the Turing test cannot be done, so what? As for crewing an starship with AI's, that isn't done for the same reason they do not make all space exploration by unmanned probes: Even the best AI is not the equivalent to humanity - It was La Forge the one who eventually found his way out of the trap.