Like most of us, I am greatly enjoying Strange New Worlds. One of the small benefits of the series, in my mind, is that it has finally broken one of the strangest of fan habits ā the insistence on literalism for TOS visuals, especially on things like ship designs and controls. Is there anyone still holding out for a ārefitā of the beautiful SNW Enterprise so that it āreallyā looks like a set from the late 1960s? The updated look is a big part of what makes the TOS world seem relevant and alive for contemporary viewers, instead of just a nostalgia trip (as it was in the tribute episodes that showed TOS sets within a TNG/DS9 context).
Given that they have made the biggest remaining move of recasting Kirk, the idea of continuing past SNW into Kirkās Five-Year Mission seems unavoidable. Given that Paramount seems to be contracting their streaming footprint, it is admittedly unlikely that anything like this would ever get made. But something like the Kelvin Timeline tie-in comics where they redo TOS stories and intersperse them with new ones could actually be a good format ā reintroducing new viewers to classic stories while retrospectively granting more cohesion to TOS.
Obviously there would be drawbacks to redoing the old episodes. Fans would howl at any changes to the scripts, and of course there would be questions about whether any of this was worth anyoneās time or talents. And maybe it wouldnāt be! But redoing the most stone-cold classics of TOS in a more modern style could literally be the only way some new fans would engage with those stories. Young people are very intolerant of entertainment that seems old or outdated. Looking back at my childhood, I never liked TOS in large part simply because it looked too old and the acting style felt weird. If we really think that these stories are classics that deserve to endure for the long haul, a remake could be a way to inject new life into them.
What do you think? [UPDATE: You all have convinced me this is a bad idea. I will keep that in mind if I ever become head of Paramount.]
While I do agree that TOS looked dated even when I was a kid I donāt know if we should redo TOS just for updating itās sake. I donāt remember how far into the 5 year mission TOS starts but I would be happy to get episodes before or after it. My main point is that I think society is at a different place and our science fiction should represent that. I think some of the great TOS episodes hit so hard because we understand our society having that problem and it gives us solutions to our own struggles. While many of the social issues of the late 60ās are still prevalent and it seems like American (Iām not American) is backsliding on a lot of things such as Womenās Rights I would still like these issues looked at from where we are today and not where we were in the 60ās.
TL:DR Science fiction is an abstraction of our society and I want our Sci-fi to abstract 20XX and not 1960ās.
Modern TV is so expensive to make that a flashy show like SNW is doing well if it can average ten episodes per year. On that basis alone I want them to do new stories. I wish they would lean a little less on TOS sometimes too. Maybe then theyād have time to write some scenes for Ortegas.
What would be the incentive to outright remake episodes instead of creating new ones with the same set of characters? Old fans will mostly hate the remakes, with some begrudging (but far from universal) acceptance if they execute it extremely well. New fans who arenāt familiar with TOS wonāt know the difference, and worse, will see even less reason to use these remakes as a jumping off point into the older series: why go watch something that Paramount obviously thought was so terrible they had to redo it? And people who arenāt Star Trek fans but exist in the periphery where they could get hooked in will see this as an example of creative bankruptcy from a giant studio riding yet another huge IP into the ground for lack of any new ideas.
I donāt think anyone would want this.
Contrast that with releasing a TOS āseason 4ā which uses these same characters and sets, and like all Star Trek leans on similar tropes, but isnāt outright recreating anything. Those existing TOS fans who have been won over by SNW will be at least curious about seeing what more this cast and writing team can do with that time period, and are much more likely to give it a shot. Newer fans who havenāt seen TOS will react largely the same as they would with outright remakes, plus the possibility of them being drawn towards TOS itself as well. And to potential fans on the periphery, this is at least less of a flagrant āweāre all out of ideasā option than outright remakes would be.
Personally Iām extremely intrigued by this recast Kirk, and would like to see more of him (not at the expense of Pike and company). But I definitely donāt want to stick Paul Wesley in exactly the same spots with more or less the same words and actions as William Shatner, just to revel in a sharper picture of a nicer set.
There is a kind of middle ground I can see them considering - remake specific episodes while forging on with new ones, much like the IDW Kelvinverse comic did when they retooled āWhere No Man Has Gone Beforeā. Itād only make sense if they used the opportunity to retcon certain details, though, or else itād seem completely gratuitous (like the Gus Van Sant version of Psycho), even more so than your standard fan service episode. āSpace Seedā with LaāAn might be interesting.
Or they could set some episodes between the episodes we already know - like: āCaptainās Log: having left Shermanās Planet and removed the last of our tribble infestation, we find ourselves with a new assignmentā¦ā
Iām not keen on āin between the episodesā episodes, youād either be viewing them out of order or alternating between two different casts.
Contrast that with releasing a TOS āseason 4ā which uses these same characters and sets, and like all Star Trek leans on similar tropes, but isnāt outright recreating anything.
Technically thatās already been done with TASā¦ Would a TAS remaster similar to TOS-R be out of the question? basically keep the voice acting (and other sfx since I expect it canāt be isolated) but reanimate it from the ground up?
why go watch something that Paramount obviously thought was so terrible they had to redo it?
Sorry, that point-of-view just doesnāt jibe with the immense amount of re-makes and sequels weāve got out there now. If it was common to think a re-make means the whole thing sucks and shouldnāt be watched, re-makes wouldnāt be as successful as they are.
I wasnāt referring to the remake being āso terrible they had to redo itā, but the original.
Paramount has a financial incentive to get people interested in their products, including TOS. Any new Star Trek show is valuable both as a draw for people interested in it, and as an opportunity to get people interested in watching the older, already existent shows. An outright remake of one of those older shows tells a potential convert brought in by your remake that the original version is something they probably shouldnāt bother with.
I know you meant the original. I just feel that, if that was the way people felt about originals after re-makes are made, we wouldnāt have so many re-makes. I think people feel more like, if they bothered to do a re-make, the original must be pretty good.
I think that instead of doing a TOS remake they should move forward in the TOS era but with another ship and itās adventures. Imagine following Una Chin-Riley as Captain of, say, the USS New Jersey? Or a non-Constitution like the Reliant? Contemporary to the Enterprise under Kirk, on its own missions, and she takes Lt. Ortegas and (now Commander) Laāan Noonien-Singh as her XO. That way we get new stories but still they get the nostalgia factor and the writing constraints of a lesser technological level.
Or, keeping up SNWās traditions of reviving projects from early in Star Trekās history, we could finally get Mābenga leading a medical frigate in the vein of the Hopeship pitch.
Or a non-Constitution like the Reliant?
Oh! Oh! USS Pioneer NCC-1500! its the TOS era STO easter egg also tucked away in the PICās starfleet museum. I just really like the sort of side kick hero ship vibes the class has compared to other alternate-TOS era designs Iāve seen.
While I welcome the more flexible interpretation of TOS visuals to make a world that is more immersive and functional while still keeping the color, and perceived campiness, Iād draw a hard line against making a genuine āRe-TOSā as it were. The idea of overwriting, or demoting old performances strikes me as a path to perpetual reboots and origin story retellings like we see with comic book superheroās, and seems a tad rude to trekās own past and how it got here.
Its also pretty unnecessary, folks often talk about how they want to see the old stories updated for a modern audience, but its often the case that the same stories have been retold with different characters and places already throughout trekās subsequent series, and as a result we are flush with ways to retell TOSās hit scenarios without crossing that line. Naked Time(TOS) vs Naked Now(TNG) vs Singularity(ENT) would be a commonly cited example, and we even already saw SNW demonstrate one such way to go about this with āa quality of mercyā a time traveling what-if reimagining of ābalance of terrorā had pike been captain and not kirk.
I accept and expect paramount to still be making at least one show set in the 23rd century for as long as SNW and its successors do well, but these should be used to look forward and expand on the time period not backwards at where weāve already gone before.
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Making new āTOSā episodes that take place during the five year mission would be cool (maybe even setting it after TOS and making a āseason 4ā), but I really have no interest in them just remaking episodes that already exist. It just seems like a waste of everyoneās time and budget they could use to make something new.
I personally doubt that they would. It goes against the philosophy behind the revival of Trek, where itās meant to be āA Trek for everyoneā. Your modern remake of TOS is SNW, and if you want something more cinematic and action-focused, thatās what the Kelvin Timeline movies are for. If you just want the older shows, you have the older shows for that.
From a practical standpoint, it would be something of a legal nightmare to dig up those scripts and start redoing them after all this time, both due to the age of the script, and the CBS/Paramount split-merger. They would have to check with the writers, or the estates of those writers if theyāre no longer around, which adds quite a bit of a headache that they wouldnāt have wanted to deal with, not when they have a writing team that might do new scripts. The only exception to that that I could see is them trying to use it to get around the writer strike, but even then, thatās an unlikely prospect.
Is there anyone still holding out for a ārefitā of the beautiful SNW Enterprise so that it āreallyā looks like a set from the late 1960s?
Sadly, I can confirm there are.
pro: anything that does not get copied will be forgotten within a generation or two. Star Trek seems big now but if itās not kept alive with piracy, official sources, or remakes (both by paramount and others, like StarWreck) it will die out just like every other cultural phenomenon. Every copy gives it a new chance of reaching the future, p/k issues asside.
