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usualgerman  ·  1 day ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: November 20th, 2024

Honestly, to me, the world of the people making it is so insular and insulated that most people involved have been involved since the early days of Trek. If you read the roster there are a lot of former Trek actors moving on to directing Trek. Another produce is … Adam Nimoy famously son of Spock, who married a former Trek actress. These people are probably nice and have at least middling talent. But at the same time, there’s no fresh ideas, no interesting takes, no story ideas that haven’t really been done before. That means you end up stuck with either warmed over old stuff (Strange New Worlds clearly wants to be TOS but made by people who never understood what TOS was in its time) , deconstructions (Picard and Discovery) or remakes of other, better ideas … but in Trek (the upcoming Academy show sounds ridiculous, basically Hogwarts but Trek with none of the charm because Trek features overly serious Starfleet Academy and a distinct lack of Hagrid).

If I were in charge, I’d start by cleaning house. Get some young hungry directors, producers, and writers passionate about really great science fiction TV, and tell them to pitch me the next Trek as if nobody had ever heard of Star Trek, Starfleet, the Enterprise, or Kirk. They’d be more or less bound by the canon, but even within that boundary, there’s a lot you can do with the universe. Set an entire series in the Ferengar. A series featuring the Marquis. Maybe and entirely Mirror Universe series set in a fascist Federation. Even the Klingon Empire could be somewhat interesting. But come up with a concept that isn’t “hey, look, we got the TNG crew out of retirement, please clap”, or “Hey, look, we pot Kirk and Spock on a set together,” or “Hey, we heard you guys like Harry Potter, but have you seen Star Trek: in school”. In short, start trying to figure out the interesting settings in your universe for great science fiction series, then make episodes that fully explore the concept and the settings.

Just for an example, the Marquis show is literally about people who we consider insurgents or terrorists or freedom fighters. And in main it’s about people fighting for freedom in their home worlds against a much more powerful enemy. Fully exploring the concept of things like whether or not the Federation gives them weapons because of threats from Kardassia would be interesting. I think dealing with the topic of what happens to civilians in areas like that again could be interesting. You’d also have to deal with the tactics used, and the basic necessity of fighting a war like that.

The Klingon one might look a bit like Game of Thrones, although I think it would also be a bit like Dune. Lots of political games and occasional actual fighting to secure your house’s position in the Empire. There’s plenty of drama in tha5 kind of setting. I’d be disappointed if they have.a dwarf, but political intrigue is probably good frame in the right hands.

A fascist federation would be a bit on the nose ATM, but I think if you play it straight and lean into it, as in Warhammer levels of leaning into the fascism, it would be fairly interesting. Exaggerating th3 hell out of it, just doing really terrible things because of some supposed external enemies (maybe Borg or Q or something). Do an I can’t believe it’s not an exterminatus. Have fun with it.