You in charge of Star Trek: The Original Series

[BlackWave]

I think shuttle craft can be done just as cheaply as the transporter it will be mostly stock footage any way just have to cart around the shuttle prop. Teleportation is lame.

Why not? It was an interesting concept at the time. Besides, think of what will be needed to create a model landscape and film a prepare a shuttle model landing and taking off for every episode, without making it look like total crap.

 

[Stephen]

You dont need to show them landing every time just cut strait to them gettin out the shuttle.

 

[BlackWave]

That's even worse--you'll have to construct a new shuttle set for every episode. Besides, viewers need things like establishing shots, otherwise it becomes too jarring. That's basic filming 101.

 

[the_lyniezian]

Surely just having the shuttle in the background is going to be enough, and you can just use the same mock-up in different sets?

(And have stock footage of the shuttle leaving the ship before you cut straight to the planet, having left the shuttle?)

Or even just have an implied shuttle?

 

[BlackWave]

Surely just having the shuttle in the background is going to be enough, and you can just use the same mock-up in different sets?

(And have stock footage of the shuttle leaving the ship before you cut straight to the planet, having left the shuttle?)

Or even just have an implied shuttle?

What is even the point? You'll have many an interesting premise ruined by the question of why doesn't someone shoot down the shuttle, or how the shuttle can survive something. Besides, having to switch around the shuttle for each set will surely cause damage to something. And an 'implied shuttle' doesn't work for reasons I've already mentioned.

 

[Archibald]

Here's the (brief) thing

(Note: in the story the Mars trip happens in 1985-1986)

"Here’s something for you, Ralph; I know you’re a sci-fi buff. Gene Roddenberry has said he’s scrapping the treatment he’d prepared for a new Star Trek series. It was going to be like the first, with the huge space cruiser Enterprise with massive phaser banks, bigger and more powerful than anything they’re likely to encounter. But he’s changed his mind; he’s been inspired by you guys, apparently. Now, Roddenberry says he’s aiming for something called Star Trek Explorer, about a small, pioneering band of humans and aliens in their fragile craft, going much farther than anyone has gone before… How about that, guys. Science fact changing the face of science fiction. It says here.”

 

[Ming777]

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.

Dude, you gotta relax (passes valium-spiked cocktail) here.

 

[wolf_brother]

One extreme idea is that in the original pilot warp technology was new...perhaps the Enterprise could be one of the first warp ships going out into space to reconnect with all those far flung human colonies which were established by slower than light means. Its a lot further into the future than just the 23rd century. This way we can have cool sci fi stories yet without silly looking aliens, they are just humans whose societies have developed various ways. They're not so much going where no man has gone before but reaching out to the long lost brothers and sisters.

This I quite enjoy.

Still have a few 'major' races circa TOS; Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, Andorians, but the rest of the episodes would be dealing with meeting other human societies and bringing them into the Federation (or not!).

Remember that the overall show had a general moral story to tell - that we're all the same, we're all human, etc. The alien races from the original Star Trek we're just ways of exploring various parts and facets of humanity - TOS aired in the late 60s, a very turbulent time in American society. However, this was also the Great Society Era, and JFK had only been dead for a few years by the time the pilot episode was on TV. The overall message still needs to be 'let's all get along'

So, Tyr's above idea is brilliant. Cut back back on certain special effects, make-up and etc, and really play forward on the idealism of the show. It'll be easy to still tap into that cultural well-spring.

 

[ColeMercury]

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.

Rantyness and bad grammar aside, I agree with you. "Star Trek" should be a show about exploration, as the title says, not about the military. Starfleet is a paramilitary organisation and that's the way it should be.

But still, I do think it can't hurt to show or at least mention that there is a proper military space force separate to Starfleet. But there shouldn't be overlap: the Enterprise should be defended by its own security force, not by a detachment of MACOs or the like*.

* That's not meant to be a criticism of "Enterprise" -- I actually liked the MACOs a lot. But they had a very good reason justifying their presence -- in normal Star Trek, there is no good reason.

One extreme idea is that in the original pilot warp technology was new...perhaps the Enterprise could be one of the first warp ships going out into space to reconnect with all those far flung human colonies which were established by slower than light means. Its a lot further into the future than just the 23rd century. This way we can have cool sci fi stories yet without silly looking aliens, they are just humans whose societies have developed various ways. They're not so much going where no man has gone before but reaching out to the long lost brothers and sisters.

That actually sounds rather like Roddenberry's post-Star Trek project "Genesis II", which was about an organisation reconnecting with isolated human societies on a post-apocalyptic Earth.

I dunno about this. There's just something about it lacking a sense of adventure -- it'd make the tone of the show inherently different. Plus it'd require the show to be set many hundreds of years in the future, which could be too far for comfort.

Here's the (brief) thing

(Note: in the story the Mars trip happens in 1985-1986)

"Here’s something for you, Ralph; I know you’re a sci-fi buff. Gene Roddenberry has said he’s scrapping the treatment he’d prepared for a new Star Trek series. It was going to be like the first, with the huge space cruiser Enterprise with massive phaser banks, bigger and more powerful than anything they’re likely to encounter. But he’s changed his mind; he’s been inspired by you guys, apparently. Now, Roddenberry says he’s aiming for something called Star Trek Explorer, about a small, pioneering band of humans and aliens in their fragile craft, going much farther than anyone has gone before… How about that, guys. Science fact changing the face of science fiction. It says here.”

I hated this when I read it in Voyage. It reads a lot like "Stephen Baxter's thoughts on why The Next Generation sucked and what he thinks a new Star Trek spinoff should be like". You can tell it's written by someone in the mid-1990s, when two Star Trek spinoffs had just been launched in two years -- Star Trek: Explorer sounds much more at home there than in the mid-1980s when there had been no spinoff series yet and the likely reaction would've been "If you're gonna make something so different to the original, why not just make it separate from Star Trek entirely?" Plus, of course, it ignores the whole context of when & why The Next Generation was conceived in the first place (which was in the aftermath of Roddenberry having had creative control of the movies taken from him, so he invented TNG as basically "Star Trek: Phase II but more so" to ensure his own legacy and assert his own relevance in a way.)

 

[Landshark]

I hated this when I read it in Voyage. It reads a lot like "Stephen Baxter's thoughts on why The Next Generation sucked and what he thinks a new Star Trek spinoff should be like". You can tell it's written by someone in the mid-1990s, when two Star Trek spinoffs had just been launched in two years -- Star Trek: Explorer sounds much more at home there than in the mid-1980s when there had been no spinoff series yet and the likely reaction would've been "If you're gonna make something so different to the original, why not just make it separate from Star Trek entirely?" Plus, of course, it ignores the whole context of when & why The Next Generation was conceived in the first place (which was in the aftermath of Roddenberry having had creative control of the movies taken from him, so he invented TNG as basically "Star Trek: Phase II but more so" to ensure his own legacy and assert his own relevance in a way.)

I have to agree on both points. It doesn't sound like Star Trek and it does sound like Steven Baxter saying "You suck because you didn't do it my way!". Either Baxter's trying to be meta, and being rather heavyhanded about it, or he's saying that Star Trek would be better as the sort of hard science fiction he writes.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

Mixing Metaphors-- Starfleet has a Scout Service

As a former Traveller player, the solution is simple. The Enterprise isn't a naval ship, but a Scout starship. The Scouts weren't strictly a military force, but would certainly serve in a war as reconnaissance and intel/covert ops types, also as explorers and diplomats which makes loads more sense considering what the Enterprise actually did. Your standard navy ship doesn't have science officers. Research ships have civilian/NOAA scientists detailed to the ship. The navy crews the ship and maintains the gear. Something that bugs me if they were all out to explore uncharted territories and heretofore isolated species, why they didn't have more of a science staff?!?
It'd take a lot more set-up detailing the various branches of Starfleet-- the "real" Starfleet charged with internal peacekeeping and power projection, the Scouts, SSLC (Starfleet Support & Logistics Command) (folks running repair ships, tugs, transports, resupply ships/bases or, as we used to call 'em shore whores), Marines, etc.
BTW, I'm acknowledging that a series bible in the 60's was next to impossible to stick to, AND Roddenberry seemed more into a broad strokes, build a sandbox and see what the stable of writers could do with the concept.
Again, I'm pining for the series bible that would've made that all clear from the git-go, but hey, it would've made sense to sort out why these folks were on the Big E, whether it's a cool career-making assignment or Siberia for screw-ups and misfits counting stars and planets instead of trees.
As a military nerd, it would've been interesting to see the raillery back and forth as to who's considered to have a real job vs. who's a bunch of sideliners riding the pine until things get serious.
Scouts could get bragging rights as to being loners out in the void, taking all the risks, mapping uncharted systems and planets, contacting new races, and if we go Rum Corps, getting obscenely rich from the initial trade agreements/patents/discoveries and making sure things don't get serious with newly discovered races. Your average Fleet line officer seems a bit dull in comparison.
Of course, for the Siberia aspect, exploring why everyone's sent to go count stars and make nice with the savages would be an interesting plot driver. Is it political, personal, just the normal scheme of things in the Federation?

As to the holodeck, blech, nyet, hell no. The 60's had plenty of psychedelic ideas floating around about total-immersion consensual illusions, but between nervousness about the drug culture and how to get there w/o drugs or ESP would've blown the network's mind.
I'm indifferent about the transporters. I think that they were a McGuffin that allowed an expedient personnel shuffling system. You could have stock shots of the shuttle launching from the Big-E and landing, but the details of the episode would make that a chore, you know, the coming in hot cliche, reflecting battle/storm damage, etc.
Space:1999 made that a regular feature though, (considering how many Eagles got vaporized or trashed each episode, you wondered how any of them were left or if they had an Eagle production line kicking them out like pop tarts between eps) and they had a British SFX budget, but the TOS powers-that-be decided, use the McGuffin. Beam me up Scotty it is!
Just a few random thoughts.

 

[anon_user]

The Siberia thing sounds a bit dark, but it also has a neat counterculture vibe - particularly if you play it as their being malcontents, too smart to shut up.

 

[Paul Spring]

I like the idea of the Enterprise being a scout ship, part of a distinct branch of Starfleet devoted to exploration of the edges of known space, which is separate from a more distinctly "military" branch. When I watched the original Star Trek as a kid, I actually pretty much imagined that this was the case.