First off for the attention of Jade, this is ungame related and i am not criticising the game or creators! So dont hit me

The past few star trek films have been, lets be honest, crap! The last one was "ok" i guess but they have really been letting down the franchise, why?
Because the powers that be are deviating from the classic and tried and tested formula! First contact was the last decent movie, a good addition to the series of films, but most people's fav film is one of the oldies! Why!? is it cus the acting was alot better? No, Because more people like trek back then? No, its because the formula attracted people, trek and no trek alike.

The stories were epic and had a grand scale to them, and people really felt like what they were seeing mattered! This was demonstrated in First Contact, but in the others i was not convinced, the scale just was not there. The best story line of all time? The dominon War, why? Because it was epic in scale and we saw grand battles and inportant build up's!

Why do the creators of trek want to deviate to a more "deeper meaning" formula! end of the day we wanna see battles, we wanna see cameras pan earth and alien planets for a grand scale and sense of epicness (im aware i use these words alot lol) We have been denied a good movei for a long time, and these "prior knowledge required" films are pushing away moderate fans and people who just wanna see a great sci-fi movie. The old films bridged this gap, they made trek, dare i say it "cool".

I feel the new series, whereva it comes from may depart to a new radical formula, i wanna see another ship, or station it the middle of events in the federation, not some "academy" or "klingon ship", as much as the klingons will always be close to my heart. We need the old formula and scale of star trek given a good dusting and getting it back in action. Bring back the genius of DS9 (esp the final series') and the TOS movies!

In my final note, i fear that unless someone sorts out the trek franchise the future of good TV and movies with trek will be in great trouble. New fans need to be recruited, but we need good TV as well as good trek to do this!!

Only if we could use the old TOS crew to sort this one out, they always got things done!

Wow, that would be a cool idea, Skeeter, I love the mirror-universe idea...but the whole series itself would need a small amount of information to explain what the hell is going on - casual watchers might not find this appealing.

...

Carott, about your capitalism point - it is definitely a worthy point when it comes to Trek - a while ago, I read <Somewhere> that since TOS was originally created, the Star trek franchise has generated over $54 BILLION! Obviously, even since then, it has likely increased even futher... 8O

Frankly, I find it hard to imagine any company turning their backs on that amount of cash!

If Trek is to continue, I personally think it should be allowed to lie low for a year or five. This isn't because i've suddenly become anti-trek, (Shoot me if I ever do! ) but because I simply think that we need to wait for the dust to settle down.

As SOM has said, trek has more than a bit of a stigma to it, and for trek to survive, people need to forget about this.

Sure, a break may lead to us loyal fans becoming disenchanted, bored, hell, even lost without it, but the casual watcher is the kind of person that a new series would need to attract. Sadly, thanks to the stigma, we loyal fans are slowly becoming a thing of the past.

A break could be just the thing that could breathe life back into the franchise. However, I do not agree with the 10 year figure that has apparently been quoted. By far, that is too big a break.

Also, as people have said, new writers could be what is needed to revive trek.

As he said, the casual watcher wants something that needs little prior knowledge, something that is action-packed, and generally cool. Nemesis may not be the complete embodiment of this, but it was a step in the right direction - afterall, there were new writers involved in it, there were homages to previous films put in for us loyal fans, and there was action.

The world is full of good writers. You just have to look at your nearest bookstore or on the internet for fanfics to prove that.

There is another thing that is a problem though - keeping it new and fresh. There is little that hasn't been done before, whether it is by trek or another sci-fi series.

Trek has always tried to push the boundaries, tried to break our prejudices - or even shown them for what they really are.

Are there reallt that many boundaries left though? We aren't gonna be surprised by some new Alien race with an extra facial bump now, are we?

Perhaps we need more shapeshifters, non-carbon based lifeforms, and more Gorn? Perhaps we should think of what actually is left to do?

Either way though, I wouldn't fancy the job of any new writers - those are some pretty big shoes to fill, and to be honest, if they don't fit, it could be the end of trek as we know it - permanently.

I think a borg invasion series would be good. The borg have invaded the alpha quadrant and in the opening episodes earth gets asimilated and all of the races come together in a huge effort to counter the invasion and somehow liberate earth.

Later Qonos and romulas could fall and there would be lots of epic battles and sub stories.

Kinda like battlestar galactica but the cylons are the borg?

Well I would watch it anyway.

There are quite a few good Trek drama's circulating the net. I like HiddenFrontier - i'm not advertising Jig

http://www.hiddenfrontier.org

As a spin off I know it will never happen but it’s nice to air it though, I would love to see something covering the origins of the Borg.

It would be interesting to see how they came about obviously created but by whom and what was the original purpose before it drastically went wrong and they assimilated there makers!

I don't know if anyone has written a pre history about the Borg, I have not found one yet althought I have not looked very hard.

Oh yes, that would be an idea opening episode for a "borg invade alpha quadrant" series. Oh at least an episode in the first few. I think we're on to a winner here, the borg sells, and we all know FC was one of the greatest trek films. Bring on the borg!

The reason i used to love TNG was the way they used to address modern concepts of morality. There were shows about eugenics, physical handicaps, genderism, pacifism, idealism they explored both right wing and left wing politics.

I also used to like the technological aspect which was based on true science. Even though it was mostly theory from our limited understanding at the moment it still made the show more credible than most sci fi drama.

I enjoyed the references to great works of literature that they included like Shakespeare, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell etc. The acting helped here also. TNG had good actors, sure there were some bad ones as well but generally it was well performed.

Favourite episode - Chain of Command Part 1 and 2. Pretty sure this episode is mostly based on the novel 1984.


I enjoyed DS9 for many of the same reasons as TNG. Thought DS9 was even more political though with many nods to history and the 2nd world war. Great series which was only let down by a overlong war near the end in my opinion. The acting in Deep space 9 was also excellent esspecially from the non federation cast like Quark and Dukat.

Voyager - i didnt really like even though i watched them all. Couldnt stand Janeway didnt like any of them actually. Scripts seemed shallow.

Enterprise - Omg terrible made worse by the fact they had so much good story they could have used. I also hated the time travel asspect. Made everything that happened ridiculuos. Was used as a way for them to explain things that were happening that never did happen.


Star trek future ( wishful thinking) = Pretend enterprise was never even released and start again but this time focus on the Romulan federation war PLEASE! Also get some actors that can act and not just girls with big tits and has been yesteryear big names. Focus on story and not just big fight scenes but also have battle scenes as well. And keep The star trek storyline in tact!

Edit - ways for them to pretend enterprise never existed. Do a shower scene with the new captain having a day dream about enterprise then waking up and going omg that was just a stupid dream.

At first, I fail to see a reason why Enterprise should be pretended as it did never happen in order to make a series about the Federation-Romulan war. But I guess I am again a lone fighter for the greatness of ENT.

Back to the subject, I think you are all wrong about the reason why Star Trek is dieing. It is not the fact that it lacks greatness or 'epicness'. It is the exact opposite!!! There are, as said, two groups; Die-hard fans and casual watchers. Most of the Die-hard fans are there since the times of TOS and thus are (sorry to say it) a bit old.

This means that in order to survive, Star Trek has to rely on new fans and new people who watch a random episode and think "wow, this is cool, I think I am going to watch it again next week" There are a few things that need to apply before they do. At first they need to simply like it. Like the concept, the way it is performed, the characters, etc. This is mostly determined for each person. If someone doesn't like Sci fi, well; too bad. Secondly, they need to be able to understand it. That means they shouldn't fall into a story and hear all kind of strange things they do not understand. A first time viewer does not know what technologies or aliens there are. They do not know what happened in previous episodes or series. That is the exact reason why TNG was so good. It was all new, everything had to be explained anyway, so people understand it. Later on, they kept refering back to those periods and while die-hard fans do know what's it all about, new people do not.

Thus, in order for Star Trek to survive, we do need to return to a more episodic type of series. Not too long drawn-out stories, and mostly not too much technobable and references new people will not understand.
Strek needs a new fanbase. The old one fanbase is decreasing while no new people join.