TMC
12-10-2014, 01:41 PM
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-trek/33270/where-next-for-star-trek
The JJ film-verse
To put it bluntly, Paramount needs the third rebooted Star Trek film to hit big in order to compete with the numbers that other studios are raking in on their shared universes. Having helped out with Avengers Assemble and Iron Man 3, it’s not like anyone at the studio is unaware of the level of success that it's competing with. While $467 million worldwide was a solid gross for Star Trek Into Darkness, and a welcome growth from the 2009 re-launch, it still doesn’t match up well to the numbers of the many super-franchises floating about. You can bet your phaser that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will take at least double Into Darkness’ numbers too. Possibly triple. And more crucially, you can bet Paramount will be looking for Star Trek's numbers to grow.
The next film, no longer to be directed by Roberto Orci (Edgar Wright is the current rumoured director of choice), needs to improve. ‘Is he or isn’t he Khan?’, while an effective way of garnering countless news stories (if not generating goodwill) needs to pale in comparison to the marketing and promotion of the next Star Trek film.
Speaking of Khan, while many were fond of Mr Cumberbatch’s villainous turn, the inclusion of the classic-era Star Trek villain turned a few people off and simply baffled others. It seemed odd to revisit a villain that had been realised so well beforehand. Furthermore, the plot quibbles of Star Trek Into Darkness also didn't help. It seems fair to suggest that, for all its success, it's not as well liked as the movie before it.
We’d suggest then that rather than offering fan service for followers of the original crew via familiar villains and plots, and resultantly hurrying to gloss over storytelling shortcuts like magic blood and interplanetary teleport devices, Star Trek 3 (Star Trek 13, if you prefer) needs to be water tight. And it needs to be a fresh Star Trek story, rather than one that's been told in part before.
While a massive war with the Klingons has been hinted as a future plot point, would that would quite cut the mustard in a time where the action, drama and politics of battle are being handled so expertly by the Planet Of The Apes series? Of course, exactly what this original story should be is not our place to say. But it just feels like war isn’t exactly a fresh topic at the moment. Although a Klingon-centric film would be very welcome.
If they have to bring back a familiar baddie, maybe something like ‘The Original Enterprise Crew Vs. The Borg’ would tick an awful lot of boxes (although there's inevitably some retreading there). This would allow Star Trek 3’s mystery director a truly terrifying villain (albeit one already realised well on the big screen), potential introspective thinking, heaps of jump-scare moments and a type of fan service which wouldn’t feel too much like re-treading old ground (the cyborg baddies known as The Borg first fought The Next Generation team, never the originals). They'd have to go some to top Patrick Stewart's Borg moments, though.
Whether or not this is what Paramount’s writing team is thinking, we have no idea. The juggling act between a tight script, solid marketable action and keeping fans (old and new) on side is surely though as vital now as when the 2009 reboot came around. Someone, we’d wager, needs to make sure the Abrams-chosen Enterprise cast sign some very long contracts too, if Paramount wants to keep up with the rest of Hollywood.
One thing you can put money on? The new Star Trek 3 probably won’t be about a search for Spock.
Live action telly
If any of the other big studios currently operating were handed the Star Trek reigns right now, they would surely be looking to use the upcoming Into Darkness follow-up as a launching pad for a TV spin-off, potentially even plural spin-offs. While putting the continuities of The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise to bed was perhaps necessary for JJ Abrams to re-launch the franchise cleanly in 2009, the napping potential of live action telly surely makes Trek ripe for a small screen return.
While Star Wars doesn’t currently have a live action TV show in active development (that we know of), we live in a golden age for science fiction and fantasy on the small screen. Even if we don’t include Gotham and Arrow, we have still had Game Of Thrones, The Flash, Constantine, The Strain, Supernatural and countless more spewing out of American networks in recent months, with varying levels of success. On The CW, even a show as divisive as The Vampire Diaries has its own spin-off show, The Originals.
However, we’ve not seen new Star Trek on our telly-boxes since the cancelation of Enterprise in 2005, which marked the end of an 18-year run of small screen Star Trek in some form or other.
Surely then, it’s time for some new shows from the franchise that was experimenting with, and occasionally mastering, TV and film interconnectivity long before anyone in Hollywood had uttered the phrase ‘Marvel cinematic universe’. We’d be surprised if no-one at Paramount was discussing this at the moment, so what options might it be considering?
As much as we’d love to see the long-mooted Captain Worf television saga, surely the best financial bet is to launch another team in the rebooted universe of JJ Abrams. That decision, while probably ruling out returns for the likes of Picard and Janeway as we traditionally know them, would allow for a weekly companion for Paramount’s film universe, not unlike the work Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. does for Marvel. That said, Star Trek is television first, movie second as a rule, so the relationship wouldn't be quite the same. But still: one shared narrative universe makes sense.
Of course, it could also follow tradition and launch another Next Generation-esque spin-off in another time period, but we’d be surprised if Paramount veered that far away from the timeline of events in the current film chronology. Cameos and references are a valuable currency, often the sort of thing that will spread across social media at maximum warp. Paramount won't want to miss out on that.
Over the years, characters like Worf, Data, Seven Of Nine and, of course, Spock have shown us how the limitless potential of the Star Trek universe can utilise unearthly species to create truly unforgettable characters, without ever losing grip on relatable emotion-heavy storytelling. With the invention of a few more such characters, or the recasting of some classics (again, a dangerous game), Paramount could win a captive weekly audience if it relaunched small screen Trek.
With TV networks falling over each-other to launch high concept shows, and the popularity of online streaming growing all the time, re-launching live action Star Trek telly must be on Paramount’s agenda. But it's keeping mum at the moment.
Animated TV
The critically-acclaimed, Emmy-winning 1970s Star Trek: The Animated Series is often overlooked when remembering the glories of earlier Star Trek output. However, the show (which younger British audiences might remember its run on BBC Two in the 1990s) is a prime example of a direction Paramount could choose to explore in the present day.
The Animated Series brought back the original Enterprise crew for 22 episodic adventures across two series, earning a lot of fans in the process and even influencing the future of the live action universe (most notably, the Holodeck was introduced in The Practical Joker, and went on to become a staple of The Next Generation).
It’s an example, too, of how the franchise has previously veered away from live action without enraging their fan-base (save for a few continuity snafus). In fact, this writer’s memories suggest that the 1990s broadcast actually made Star Trek a fair few new fans. Is there any reason the powers that be should resist making a new animated Star Trek show? We don’t think so.
Again, there are limitless possibilities for what this show could be. While bringing back the original cast again to see how the pre-reboot continuity dealt with the random disappearance of Spock makes a fabulous pipedream, something a little more newcomer-friendly is far more likely.
Although the original animated series fared well (it was the only Filmnation show to get an immediate second season, was praised for its use of wider artistic freedom and still pops up on best animated show lists), one criticism is that it ended-up more suitable for hardened fans then the intended ‘fun for all the family’ target market. A new show, however, could surely remedy that.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Hulk And The Agents Of SMASH, Batman: The Brave And The Bold, the Avengers Assemble cartoons and the Ultimate Spider-Man show (which features Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson!) have proven to us countless times that a kid-friendly show riffing on characters concurrently seen on the big screen is no bad thing.
If you asked the bean-counters behind any of those shows, they’d surely reel off steady ratings statistics and huge merchandising income numbers, as well as mentioning the invaluably important act of recruiting fans when they’re young and full of enthusiasm. Ask a generic school-child what they know about Star Trek these days though, and we doubt you’d hear much back, unless they had some pretty cool parents.
All those other characters and properties though? Kids have the lunchboxes, the toys, the games and the burgeoning desire to bug even the un-coolest of parents to take them to see the big screen version. To compete, Star Trek surely needs a chunk of that. Star Wars, Marvel and DC are getting a whopping head-start on making new fans, as it stands.
Although it’s a longer shot than the return of live action telly, a new Star Trek animated show (either with familiar characters of fun new ones) is surely on a few meeting agendas somewhere in LA.
Other tie-ins
Of course, like Star Wars, Star Trek has never just been about the tent-pole films and serialised small screen adventures, it’s a cultural phenomenon that spread across the world of novels, comics, audiobooks, computer games, board-games, toys and even role playing games, accruing more and more fans as it went.
While the books and comics have continued in decent health, we’d claim that, if Star Trek 3 hits big, the franchise needs to follow-up with a big push in all directions to win new fans, bring back old ones and, again, introduce youngsters to the franchise, if Paramount wants a chance of matching any of its rival franchises. Plus: it's a great chance, perhaps most crucially of all, to open up more quality storytelling.
The release of Star Trek Into Darkness handled tie-ins fairly abysmally in one regard, with the concurrently-released Star Trek videogame crashing and burning more-so than the Enterprise did in Star Trek Into Darkness. This was a huge misstep and, without meaning to sound harsh, an example of why Paramount is falling behind a little with Star Trek, compared to the competition.
Star Wars, while having cancelled more projects than most franchises could even dream of, is renowned for excellent videogames. When Star Wars: The Force Awakens drops, you can bet your bantha that the new Battlefront game won’t be a sloppily chucked-together afterthought. These days, almost every franchise going has a tie-in LEGO game, at the very very least. And they, while sometimes a little repetitive, are always good fun.
While we’re not saying that LEGO Star Trek is the way to go (maybe one day, though), it seems that no-one at Paramount is giving much thought to tie-in videogames, with the Star Trek game ending-up lambasted by pretty much everyone for essentially just being a cheap third-person shooter. And not a good one either.
When JJ Abrams himself is criticising you publically for a tie-in to his own film, you know you’ve screwed up pretty badly. While there’s nothing wrong with shooting-based games (Star Trek, to be honest, could work in any gaming genre), there is something very wrong with getting to the point of release before realising that your game is so bad that it’s going to be harmful to your main franchise.
What we’d hope Paramount is working on? Our call (irrelevant as it is) would be to pay big and entice some huge developers into helping it rebuild its reputation. We can imagine, for example, a stranded-on-a-planet exploration/adventure Trek game with an Uncharted-type engine, or a Knights Of The Old Republic-style RPG where your own cadet can explore the Star Trek universe’s many intriguing corners. Now that would be fun...
To conclude then, although losing JJ Abrams, falling behind the shared universe rush and releasing a dodgy videogame has put the Star Trek screen universe in lesser health than it currently deserves, there remains no shortage of potential as it approaches its 50th birthday.
The key, as we see it, is Star Trek 3/Star Trek 13. Whether it becomes an Edgar Wright project or not, it needs to please fans old and new, and entice some new ones by offering something unique and attention-grabbing.
And most of all, it needs to tell a great story, and tell it well.
From there, spin-offs and tie-ins in all directions would be a fine idea, so long as enough time, money and care are put into all of them. A new live action show (on TV and/or Netflix), some kid-friendly animated content and expertly-crafted videogames would be a very strong next-few-steps for Paramount. As long as there's proper quality control, and strong stories to tell.
Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-trek/33270/where-next-for-star-trek#ixzz3LW9x94B2
The JJ film-verse
To put it bluntly, Paramount needs the third rebooted Star Trek film to hit big in order to compete with the numbers that other studios are raking in on their shared universes. Having helped out with Avengers Assemble and Iron Man 3, it’s not like anyone at the studio is unaware of the level of success that it's competing with. While $467 million worldwide was a solid gross for Star Trek Into Darkness, and a welcome growth from the 2009 re-launch, it still doesn’t match up well to the numbers of the many super-franchises floating about. You can bet your phaser that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will take at least double Into Darkness’ numbers too. Possibly triple. And more crucially, you can bet Paramount will be looking for Star Trek's numbers to grow.
The next film, no longer to be directed by Roberto Orci (Edgar Wright is the current rumoured director of choice), needs to improve. ‘Is he or isn’t he Khan?’, while an effective way of garnering countless news stories (if not generating goodwill) needs to pale in comparison to the marketing and promotion of the next Star Trek film.
Speaking of Khan, while many were fond of Mr Cumberbatch’s villainous turn, the inclusion of the classic-era Star Trek villain turned a few people off and simply baffled others. It seemed odd to revisit a villain that had been realised so well beforehand. Furthermore, the plot quibbles of Star Trek Into Darkness also didn't help. It seems fair to suggest that, for all its success, it's not as well liked as the movie before it.
We’d suggest then that rather than offering fan service for followers of the original crew via familiar villains and plots, and resultantly hurrying to gloss over storytelling shortcuts like magic blood and interplanetary teleport devices, Star Trek 3 (Star Trek 13, if you prefer) needs to be water tight. And it needs to be a fresh Star Trek story, rather than one that's been told in part before.
While a massive war with the Klingons has been hinted as a future plot point, would that would quite cut the mustard in a time where the action, drama and politics of battle are being handled so expertly by the Planet Of The Apes series? Of course, exactly what this original story should be is not our place to say. But it just feels like war isn’t exactly a fresh topic at the moment. Although a Klingon-centric film would be very welcome.
If they have to bring back a familiar baddie, maybe something like ‘The Original Enterprise Crew Vs. The Borg’ would tick an awful lot of boxes (although there's inevitably some retreading there). This would allow Star Trek 3’s mystery director a truly terrifying villain (albeit one already realised well on the big screen), potential introspective thinking, heaps of jump-scare moments and a type of fan service which wouldn’t feel too much like re-treading old ground (the cyborg baddies known as The Borg first fought The Next Generation team, never the originals). They'd have to go some to top Patrick Stewart's Borg moments, though.
Whether or not this is what Paramount’s writing team is thinking, we have no idea. The juggling act between a tight script, solid marketable action and keeping fans (old and new) on side is surely though as vital now as when the 2009 reboot came around. Someone, we’d wager, needs to make sure the Abrams-chosen Enterprise cast sign some very long contracts too, if Paramount wants to keep up with the rest of Hollywood.
One thing you can put money on? The new Star Trek 3 probably won’t be about a search for Spock.
Live action telly
If any of the other big studios currently operating were handed the Star Trek reigns right now, they would surely be looking to use the upcoming Into Darkness follow-up as a launching pad for a TV spin-off, potentially even plural spin-offs. While putting the continuities of The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise to bed was perhaps necessary for JJ Abrams to re-launch the franchise cleanly in 2009, the napping potential of live action telly surely makes Trek ripe for a small screen return.
While Star Wars doesn’t currently have a live action TV show in active development (that we know of), we live in a golden age for science fiction and fantasy on the small screen. Even if we don’t include Gotham and Arrow, we have still had Game Of Thrones, The Flash, Constantine, The Strain, Supernatural and countless more spewing out of American networks in recent months, with varying levels of success. On The CW, even a show as divisive as The Vampire Diaries has its own spin-off show, The Originals.
However, we’ve not seen new Star Trek on our telly-boxes since the cancelation of Enterprise in 2005, which marked the end of an 18-year run of small screen Star Trek in some form or other.
Surely then, it’s time for some new shows from the franchise that was experimenting with, and occasionally mastering, TV and film interconnectivity long before anyone in Hollywood had uttered the phrase ‘Marvel cinematic universe’. We’d be surprised if no-one at Paramount was discussing this at the moment, so what options might it be considering?
As much as we’d love to see the long-mooted Captain Worf television saga, surely the best financial bet is to launch another team in the rebooted universe of JJ Abrams. That decision, while probably ruling out returns for the likes of Picard and Janeway as we traditionally know them, would allow for a weekly companion for Paramount’s film universe, not unlike the work Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. does for Marvel. That said, Star Trek is television first, movie second as a rule, so the relationship wouldn't be quite the same. But still: one shared narrative universe makes sense.
Of course, it could also follow tradition and launch another Next Generation-esque spin-off in another time period, but we’d be surprised if Paramount veered that far away from the timeline of events in the current film chronology. Cameos and references are a valuable currency, often the sort of thing that will spread across social media at maximum warp. Paramount won't want to miss out on that.
Over the years, characters like Worf, Data, Seven Of Nine and, of course, Spock have shown us how the limitless potential of the Star Trek universe can utilise unearthly species to create truly unforgettable characters, without ever losing grip on relatable emotion-heavy storytelling. With the invention of a few more such characters, or the recasting of some classics (again, a dangerous game), Paramount could win a captive weekly audience if it relaunched small screen Trek.
With TV networks falling over each-other to launch high concept shows, and the popularity of online streaming growing all the time, re-launching live action Star Trek telly must be on Paramount’s agenda. But it's keeping mum at the moment.
Animated TV
The critically-acclaimed, Emmy-winning 1970s Star Trek: The Animated Series is often overlooked when remembering the glories of earlier Star Trek output. However, the show (which younger British audiences might remember its run on BBC Two in the 1990s) is a prime example of a direction Paramount could choose to explore in the present day.
The Animated Series brought back the original Enterprise crew for 22 episodic adventures across two series, earning a lot of fans in the process and even influencing the future of the live action universe (most notably, the Holodeck was introduced in The Practical Joker, and went on to become a staple of The Next Generation).
It’s an example, too, of how the franchise has previously veered away from live action without enraging their fan-base (save for a few continuity snafus). In fact, this writer’s memories suggest that the 1990s broadcast actually made Star Trek a fair few new fans. Is there any reason the powers that be should resist making a new animated Star Trek show? We don’t think so.
Again, there are limitless possibilities for what this show could be. While bringing back the original cast again to see how the pre-reboot continuity dealt with the random disappearance of Spock makes a fabulous pipedream, something a little more newcomer-friendly is far more likely.
Although the original animated series fared well (it was the only Filmnation show to get an immediate second season, was praised for its use of wider artistic freedom and still pops up on best animated show lists), one criticism is that it ended-up more suitable for hardened fans then the intended ‘fun for all the family’ target market. A new show, however, could surely remedy that.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Hulk And The Agents Of SMASH, Batman: The Brave And The Bold, the Avengers Assemble cartoons and the Ultimate Spider-Man show (which features Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson!) have proven to us countless times that a kid-friendly show riffing on characters concurrently seen on the big screen is no bad thing.
If you asked the bean-counters behind any of those shows, they’d surely reel off steady ratings statistics and huge merchandising income numbers, as well as mentioning the invaluably important act of recruiting fans when they’re young and full of enthusiasm. Ask a generic school-child what they know about Star Trek these days though, and we doubt you’d hear much back, unless they had some pretty cool parents.
All those other characters and properties though? Kids have the lunchboxes, the toys, the games and the burgeoning desire to bug even the un-coolest of parents to take them to see the big screen version. To compete, Star Trek surely needs a chunk of that. Star Wars, Marvel and DC are getting a whopping head-start on making new fans, as it stands.
Although it’s a longer shot than the return of live action telly, a new Star Trek animated show (either with familiar characters of fun new ones) is surely on a few meeting agendas somewhere in LA.
Other tie-ins
Of course, like Star Wars, Star Trek has never just been about the tent-pole films and serialised small screen adventures, it’s a cultural phenomenon that spread across the world of novels, comics, audiobooks, computer games, board-games, toys and even role playing games, accruing more and more fans as it went.
While the books and comics have continued in decent health, we’d claim that, if Star Trek 3 hits big, the franchise needs to follow-up with a big push in all directions to win new fans, bring back old ones and, again, introduce youngsters to the franchise, if Paramount wants a chance of matching any of its rival franchises. Plus: it's a great chance, perhaps most crucially of all, to open up more quality storytelling.
The release of Star Trek Into Darkness handled tie-ins fairly abysmally in one regard, with the concurrently-released Star Trek videogame crashing and burning more-so than the Enterprise did in Star Trek Into Darkness. This was a huge misstep and, without meaning to sound harsh, an example of why Paramount is falling behind a little with Star Trek, compared to the competition.
Star Wars, while having cancelled more projects than most franchises could even dream of, is renowned for excellent videogames. When Star Wars: The Force Awakens drops, you can bet your bantha that the new Battlefront game won’t be a sloppily chucked-together afterthought. These days, almost every franchise going has a tie-in LEGO game, at the very very least. And they, while sometimes a little repetitive, are always good fun.
While we’re not saying that LEGO Star Trek is the way to go (maybe one day, though), it seems that no-one at Paramount is giving much thought to tie-in videogames, with the Star Trek game ending-up lambasted by pretty much everyone for essentially just being a cheap third-person shooter. And not a good one either.
When JJ Abrams himself is criticising you publically for a tie-in to his own film, you know you’ve screwed up pretty badly. While there’s nothing wrong with shooting-based games (Star Trek, to be honest, could work in any gaming genre), there is something very wrong with getting to the point of release before realising that your game is so bad that it’s going to be harmful to your main franchise.
What we’d hope Paramount is working on? Our call (irrelevant as it is) would be to pay big and entice some huge developers into helping it rebuild its reputation. We can imagine, for example, a stranded-on-a-planet exploration/adventure Trek game with an Uncharted-type engine, or a Knights Of The Old Republic-style RPG where your own cadet can explore the Star Trek universe’s many intriguing corners. Now that would be fun...
To conclude then, although losing JJ Abrams, falling behind the shared universe rush and releasing a dodgy videogame has put the Star Trek screen universe in lesser health than it currently deserves, there remains no shortage of potential as it approaches its 50th birthday.
The key, as we see it, is Star Trek 3/Star Trek 13. Whether it becomes an Edgar Wright project or not, it needs to please fans old and new, and entice some new ones by offering something unique and attention-grabbing.
And most of all, it needs to tell a great story, and tell it well.
From there, spin-offs and tie-ins in all directions would be a fine idea, so long as enough time, money and care are put into all of them. A new live action show (on TV and/or Netflix), some kid-friendly animated content and expertly-crafted videogames would be a very strong next-few-steps for Paramount. As long as there's proper quality control, and strong stories to tell.
Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-trek/33270/where-next-for-star-trek#ixzz3LW9x94B2