I seem to have read it in an old Time Magazine article about Trek were it said that this proposal was shot-down by Roddenberry because the whole point Star Trek was trying to convey was, the whole of mankind had finally settled their differences and are now working together smoothly, that’s why you have a Russian on the bridge (Chekov)surrounded by American and British crew members, and this doesn’t bother them one bit. And since the original series was shown in the 60′s which is a part of the “Cold War” era, it really sends out a powerful message regarding peace and harmony amongst nations. Having in-fighting in the bridge will go against this ideal.

Hence, when Roddenberry let go of his hold on the franchise, Voyager was created to pursue that “conflict in the bridge” idea. So, again, was this Berman?

There are no words . . .

This looks like everything we have hoped for.

People . . . its change we CAN believe in.

hahahaha.

Sorry, Matthew, but one PR writer can recognize another, and when I read what you wrote I immediately recognized it as a studio PR piece.

WOW!!!

I seriously can’t watch this trailer without getting all choked up. And all that’s left is that the movie live up to this trailer.

Star Trek didn’t need a “re-boot”. It needed to go back to it’s roots. With movies, people, politics, and television all running on damaged values, this is the time for the honesty and integrity of Star Trek to really make a difference!

Of course some ‘fans’ do not wish to be reached, and they will dissect, pick and moan at every canonical transgression and modernisation in the movie…but they will be in the minority and will have no bearing on the success of this movie – if they are the fans we have to leave behind to bring Gene’s marvel to future generations then so be it.

Make no mistake though, I will be the first to throw my arms up in disgust if they deviate too far from Gene’s vision for the sake of action and ticket sales – but I’ve seen nothing yet to justify such fears. JJA is by no means an avid fan, but everyone and his dog knows that Star Trek is about humanity, friendship, morality and generally leaving the universe a better place than when you found it – and I don’t think JJA will have forgotten these fundamental ingredients for telling a ‘Trekkian’ story.

When can I book my Imax seat…..I can’t wait.

Didn’t they bring us Q, the Borg, Tapestry, Yesterday’s Enterprise, The Best of Both Worlds, etc.?

Actually, that wasn’t an alternate timeline, that was a quantum inversion effect (2 Voyagers sharing the same space at the same time). Oh man, did I just show my geekness?

Rick Berman is the anti-Christ. He and Braga nearly destroyed Trek. Let’s hope JJ Abrams will bring it back to it’s greatness.

thats gotta be worth something???????????

yes???????

I’ve come to grips with this concept…So, I’m excited now. I will go see it and let my judgment be known from there.

BTW, the music is wonderful! It’s very stirring, and feels very classical, but up-to-date. I’m glad to be excited again about seeing a Star Trek film.

So if Star Trek is dead as a doornail, why is everyone so upset they might have to do something radical to bring it back? Anything that gets years more of Kirk/Spock/McCoy etc, adventures back in my life, I all for.

Even if the movie is a time travel plot as rumored, and the past is changed so the canon of the original series is changed, so what? I’ve gotten so sick of time travel stories in sci-fi, because no matter how clever the plot, everything always gets reset in the end. What if there was a real consequence to the time travel? That it isn’t fixable? THAT is a story I have rarely seen, let alone in Star Trek.

Think of the possibilities of Star Trek freed from previous storyline constrictions. What if, for example, in the episode of the original series “Errand of Mercy”, the Organians didn’t stop the Federation and Klingons from fighting. In a new timeline, that could happen.

The writers could just skew things a little, keeping most of established lore (because it’s mostly great), but changing enough to clear the path to new stories. Star Trek is dead anyways. If some daring changes are needed to bring it back, I’m good with it as long as they try to recapture the spirit of the original series. The trailers, especially the new one in March, give me hope. The last trailer packed more drama, energy and excitement into 2 minutes than the abysmal series Enterprise did in its entire run.

Can’t wait until the release.

What faces Abrams, I think, is can he deliver the same chemistery between the main characters and tell a revelant tale at the same time. In this day and age I don’t see how that can be done at the same level as was done with TOS. If he succeeds at that, then I would expect to see a majority of hold-out Trekkies come around. Special effects, action and sex scenes (or lack there of) aside, Star Trek was originally about the characters and the situations (story) they faced.

Nowadays that seems to be secondary to the all mighty buck. No doubt this will be a succe$$ful film, but will it be a true Star Trek? I’m holding on to my hopes it will be, but I won’t be surprised if it won’t. I am still happy just to see Star Trek in the theaters again though.

Thanks so much for that background – I’d never heard any of that and it’s VERY interesting.

But it only confirms what I’ve been saying here on Screen Rant for years: Rick Berman killed Star Trek.

Biggest mistake Gene Roddenberry ever did was handing the reins over to that guy.

Vic

——-

What Berman and his staff seem never to have realized is that “The Original Series” was so endearing because of its stars — because Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley seemed at once larger than life and so very vulnerable, so very human. The subsequent casts have been, at best, knockoffs of the original characters (Data=Spock) or, at worst, anonymous faces wearing drab Starfleet uniforms. Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard forever seemed like a good actor stuck in a thankless part: the captain of a hotel lobby, which the bridge of the Enterprise-D always resembled. And “Voyager’s” Kate Mulgrew exudes remarkably little charisma and barely opens her mouth to deliver her lines.

Berman’s decision to kill Kirk wasn’t merely a pragmatic solution to a nonexistent quandary. After all, why couldn’t Paramount make films using both casts, at least until the original crew of the Enterprise started dying off in real life? No, his execution of Kirk symbolized a lack of understanding of what made the show so endearing for so long. You can put any group of people in Starfleet uniforms, but if there is no sense of humor, no sense of purpose, no sense of compassion, then it sure as hell ain’t “Star Trek.”

“There has definitely been a difference in vision than what we were doing, and that’s either for better or worse,” says Nimoy, who says he does not watch the new shows because he hasn’t the time. “You have to give them credit, because, on the one hand, we only lasted three seasons and were canceled. They lasted 12 years with three different shows. If you put the aggregate years together, that’s like 30 years of ‘Star Trek.’ And they have a right to call it ‘Star Trek,’ but it has evolved into something different. What it is, I don’t know — I don’t watch enough of it to pass judgment.

“I can tell you on a very general level I think we had a certain kind of charm and a currency. I felt we were in touch with the time. Now, times have changed, and maybe it’s not as easy to grab hold of a Zeitgeist as it was for us. We were dealing with very strong social movements of the time. By that, I mean the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, overpopulation concerns, the growing awareness of concerns for the planet. We had very rich, fertile territory to plow, and I think we did it very well. I don’t know that these people have the same kind of territory to plow, except, ‘How are we going to get home this week?’ It’s not the same, is it?”

Nimoy has never forgiven Berman for the poor handling of Kirk’s death — and for the fact that Braga and Moore, in their original “The Undiscovered Territory” script, had reduced the Spock and McCoy characters to nothing but walk-on parts, another sign of how little these men cared about the original show. Nimoy says he wouldn’t have minded so much had he been asked to direct the film before the script was written. Even if the Spock role was to be small, at least as director Nimoy could find some way to give him an identity.

But that wasn’t to be.

“I had directed two very successful ‘Star Trek’ movies, and ‘IV,’ it’s safe to say, is to this day the most successful,” Nimoy says. “But the point is, when I was asked to do them, I was brought in first, as the director to make a movie for Paramount Pictures. When Rick Berman announced to me he had been hired as producer to make the next ‘Star Trek’ movie, I said to him, ‘Who’s going to direct it?’ And he said, ‘Well, it would be very exciting to work with you as a director someday,’ which I thought was very evasive. Then several months later, after he and his people had done the script, they called me and said, ‘We would love to have you direct this movie.’

“Well, this is an entirely different construct than making a movie for Paramount. Now, I’m making a movie for Rick Berman, you see. Well, the script was lousy. I said so: ‘This needs major, major work.’ They said, ‘Well, we don’t have time for the kind of changes you’re talking about.’ So I said goodbye. And then to end it with a fight scene between Kirk and Malcolm McDowell! What’s the point?”

Since then, Nimoy has not talked to Paramount about anything related to “Star Trek” — with one exception: He and business partner John de Lancie (better known as “Next Generation’s” Q) have shipped to stores this week an hour-long audio version of their “Spock vs. Q” two-man show, which they’ve performed at a half-dozen “Star Trek” conventions. Nimoy licenses the character from Paramount; that’s the extent of his relationship with the studio.

“Which is a shame,” Nimoy says, “since Rick Berman and I used to be friends.”

Regardless of whether this is a complete reboot or an alternate timeline, the fact of the matter is, ST was a living dead franchise. I dread thinking how bad and forgettable the last few Star Trek movies were. Generations, Insurrection, Nemesis all suffered from plots that were just plain stupid and filled with so much tepid sentimentalizing cloaked as drama. The “psychic rape” of Deanna Troi actually caused the audience to laugh, which is rather horrible, but it was so badly done that Star Trek became a show you could not take seriously. At all.

BTW, to the commenter still complaining about the “sex scene,” I just don’t understand what brings out the prudishness in so many fans. Probably the only reason TOS never had an sex scenes was that it was 1960s television! You argument that the new movie shouldn’t have a sex scene because TOS didn’t have any only makes sense if anyone could have gotten away with broadcasting a sex scene on TV back, the way you’re arguing. Sex scenes were not an option back then.

By the way, anyone who is a Trek fan should read this Salon.com piece from 1999, prophetically entitled “The Trouble with Trek.” It has a lot of insights that explains the failure of the NG movies, the Love Boat drama that DS9 devolved into, the insipid mediocrity of Voyager, and the last gasp attempt of Enterprise to break out of the orbit of mediocrity, but failing to do.

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/1999/10/29/trek/index.html

(Might take a long time to load, seems like Salon’s servers aren’t so good retrieving stores buried in the archives, but here’s an excerpt.)

“The obvious question at this point is, Who killed “Star Trek”?

“The obvious answer is Rick Berman.”

“And maybe it’s as simple as that. After all, before signing on with “Trek” at the beginning of the decade, Berman was in charge of Paramount’s miniseries division, and he had been responsible for the Emmy-winning children’s TV series “The Big Blue Marble.” When he first met with Roddenberry in 1986, during his initial talks with Paramount about a new “Trek” series, Berman told the so-called Great Bird of the Galaxy he didn’t know one thing about “Star Trek,” aside from the one or two episodes he had seen as a kid. If nothing else, Berman was honest.”

“Five years later, Berman found himself in charge of the franchise. Within two years he had alienated Spock and had become one of the men responsible for killing off Captain Kirk in the film “Star Trek: Generations.” For longtime fans like me, it’s been downhill from there.”

“The dirty little secret is Berman and the people running ‘Star Trek’ right now hate ‘The Original Series’ and hate being compared to it,” says Altman, referred to by the Los Angeles Times as the “world’s foremost Trekspert.” Altman, during his days as a sci-fi magazine journalist, actually used to have a good relationship with Berman until he became critical of “Next Generation” and “Voyager.”

“They are not people who have any affection for the old show. When [producer] Harve Bennett and [director] Nick Meyer took over the franchise for ‘Star Trek II,’ they went back and looked at every episode of ‘The Original Series’ and learned everything they could about what worked and what didn’t. When these guys [Berman and writer Brannon Braga] took over, they hated the original and resented being in the shadow and avoided watching it. They’d be happy if people forgot the original, and that’s unfortunate.”

Rick Berman is the anti-Gene.”

Kinda makes you see Star Trek in a new light.