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Star Trek only ever had ONE premise, and stuck with it

posted 5 years ago by [deleted]
6 replies | jump to latest

The main premise of Star Trek, from the very beginning and the whole "Wagon Train to the Stars", was to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, and to go boldly where no-one had gone before, and it worked well.

It worked well for TNG as well, with a new generation and a better ship.

Then Paramount executives saw J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 bible (and no doubt copied it) when he pitched it to them, rejected it, but then got greedy and used many ideas (and names) from the classic Babylon 5 for their own show, DS9. And guess what? With the benefit of hindsight, DS9 turned out to be the best Trek show ever, even though it was still riding on the coattails of Babylon 5.

Then Paramount ran out of ideas and just modified the original recipe for Voyager, while playing it safe, even though the premise was squandered. But that's fine with me, more of the same winning TNG formula, thanks!

And finally, Enterprise, a prequel, because Star Wars worked so well with their prequels.

So you see, Star Trek has basically stuck with its winning formula, even rehashing it for the Abrams shit onwards in 2009. They just can't think of original ideas anymore.

[–] Owlwise (1535) 5 years ago

My quarrel with Enterprise was that it looked back, not forward. and Star Trek was always about looking forward. The smartest thing TNG ever did was to jump forward from TOS by several decades. That's one of the reasons I deeply dislike the Abrams reboots (aside from his trying to turn it into Star Wars-lite, because TOS was "too cerebral" in his own words). A new film series shouldn't have gone back to Kirk & Spock, it should have gone forward to new, unexplored possibilities.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

My beef with Abrams Trek, and definitely with Discovery, is that they're both prequels as well. Abrams seemed to be under the impression that most people wanted to see the TOS crew (even if recast) and no-one else, probably based on the success of the TOS movies (or not for TNG). I believe that Abrams thought the movies came first, or were superior (they weren't). The thing is, whilst I grew up watching TOS when I was a child, TNG was a revelation to me as it felt like my own generation's Trek (which it was), and I prefer TNG onwards as a result. TOS positively feels dated to me (which it is).

[–] Owlwise (1535) 5 years ago

I'm old enough to have seen TOS when it originally came on, and I still appreciate the best of its stories … but I welcomed TNG, admiring it in part because it took the best of TOS & went forward with it. And to me, it's still the most rewatchable of all Trek.

Abrams' films strike me as the most expensive fan fiction ever made … and bad fan fiction, at that. The fan-made TOS episodes that used to be shown on YouTube -- are they still there? -- actually did their best to maintain the tone & approach of the series, and on a miniscule budget, too. I'd take them over Abrams' reboots any time.

[–] AlfredTheGreat (471) 5 years ago

I think although I am a TOS fan first and foremost DS9 had the most refinement and polish to it which made for its success. The story telling and dialog was ultra smooth compared to the earlier series. I hate to say it but DS9 is the high performance sports car to TOS's Model T. At least Roddenberry and later Moore learned from the earlier series as to what needed improvement.

[–] liscarkat (18886) 5 years ago

"DS9 turned out to be the best Trek show ever"

Oh god, I'm laughing so hard, I can hardly breathe!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Why is that so amusing, lscarkat? What was better? And please explain why?