Reboot! -whap-
It’s pretty easy now to find copies of the J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel proposal for re-booting Classic Trek. This series would not have had to deal with 40 years worth of continuity unless it wanted to from time to time, and would have had technology more believable to the 21st century viewer; as well, it could have been interesting to see new actors and scriptwriters putting their spin on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (The authors even throw out the idea of a female Scotty or Sulu, just to cut down on the sexism a bit.)
But would it have been Star Trek?
I don’t actually have a problem with a single revision they suggest – lots of it would have been quite interesting, and I think their season arcs had much more potential than Enterprise‘s. No; what I’m worried about is the current angst-ridden quality of Sci-Fi right now, and the idea that this show would bring that to Star Trek. That simply doesn’t work right.
Star Trek‘s main message was: “If we ever get a grip on ourselves, the future’s gonna be great.”
TNG: “In fact, with a little more time, it’ll be even shinier and comfier. Though we will talk a lot.”
DS9: “And once in a while, we’ll have to make nasty decisions and put ourselves on the line to keep what we’ve worked for. Worth it, though.”
(Then things came apart a bit)
VOY: “Of course, this future society will produce a few spoiled brats who, in a crisis situation, will manage to be smug and whiny simultaneously. Hell, let’s look at boobs and funky alien tech for a while.”
ENT: “And for a while there, we were just whiny, and everyone in the universe hated us and had cooler toys. Wow, we sucked.”
—–
While the main message of B5 and the current BSG seems to boil down to, “Humans (and the aliens who are like us) suck. We’ll muddle through somehow, but we suck now and forever. Deal with it.” Perhaps, a more realistic message, but I’d prefer to fight for the great shiny future, myself. Would this Star Trek be a gritty, realistic, angst-ridden examination of the flaws of humanity? If so, I don’t think I’d want any part of it.
>.> Could you email me your address, Michael? I’m still holding a thank you card for you from our wedding!
Thanks 😀
Although I am a DS9 partisan, I concur.
Excellent discussion of what made Star Trek, Star Trek. My dad is one of the original ST fans from his college days, so I’d like to forward this on to him. I think he’ll really appreciate it.
JMS’s “re-imagining” Star Trek sounds *exactly* like what created the new BSG. And as the original BSG and this one differ, I think you’re right about how a new ST would be portrayed. There was a society-wide hope in the 60s, that if we could just get rid of poverty, hunger, disease, if we could give everyone an equal shot, then the world would be a great place. Star Trek reflected the ideals of the entire society and the creation of the many social programs we are so cynical about today.
As you say, that cynicism is exactly what gave us B5 and now BSG. It says that, add a lot of flashy technology and a few hundred years and people are still basically people. Even with plenty of food, many will starve. With cures to diseases at our fingertips, we’ll let people suffer and die. As you say, probably more realistic, but not nearly so hopeful.
Hmm. I thought B5 was rather inspiring; certinaly not as down-on-humans as the new GB seems to be.
Well, in what I’ve seen of BSG so far (I’m in early second season right now), yes, people suck. Even heroic people suck. Sometimes their greatness is their utter ability to suck louder, harder, and faster than anyone else around, blindfolded, and with both hands tied behind their back with barbed wire. Hmm. That analogy leads to violations of rule 1. Anyway, B5, I felt, had a different message. That there’s always going to be a bad apple in the barrell, but that individual action mattered. If you were true to yourself, and your principles, then one man (or woman) *could* make a difference, even on a galactic scale.
I wouldn’t mind a little of that in a new Star Trek. Even an little fan service soap opera. So long as they kept it from being as self-loathing as BSG can be sometimes – hell, bsg’s spin is epitomized by the new card game. You fight each other for control of the fleet! But don’t get too rowdy, or you might attract the cylons. You remember them, the point of the series?
You certainly have my permission. 🙂
There’s a scene in Stranger In a Strange Land where V.M. Smith tells Jubal Harshaw (paraphrased), “Maybe this optimism is silly. Maybe humanity needs all this conflict to weed out the weak.” Harshaw’s response is, “Perhaps this is a meta-weeding, where in the long run, only those willing to abandon the conflict will survive, while everyone else destroys themselves.”
Also very 60s, but it has the ring of truth to me.
One of the many things I’ll gladly give B5 props for is that most of its characters, despite personal flaws and demons, did all they could to hold back the floods. Sometimes, that’s all one can do.
I think the Doctor and B5 have that in common. Fight the good fights, even the hopeless ones, because somebody has to.
Perhaps I’d have personally enjoyed B5 more if I’d caught more of the episodes where the ‘good fight’ paid off. (I know those episodes were there, I just have bad timing sometimes.) When I watched, the characters were usually punished for even trying.
I noticed that about the card game also 🙂
Well, if nothing else, you and have convinced me I was right in not buying into yet another gaming system. Now I may be dumping my starter and half-brick of Horrorclix as well. Maybe even unopened. Now I hear Toonclix may not even be released, and it was the only game I’ve actually been looking forward to.
As for NuBSG, it says a lot that the only episode I actually liked was universally reviled by the ‘shippers…
I’ll have to disagree with your analysis of B5 there.
In the end, if you take the whole arc into account and pretend parts of the fifth season were a fever dream then it’s really a lot more optimistic than people give it credit for. The way I break down my Sci-Fi is:
Star Trek = optimism
BSG = pessimism
B5 = realism
In the world of Babylon 5, the humans are actually repeatedly the savors of the entire galaxy through their way of thinking. Delenn has a great speech about the strength of humans lie in their neccesity and ability to make communities.
Yes, things go to hell in a handbasket. But I think the idea is more: Wow, life sucks sometimes. But if we work together we’ll make it. It’ll keep throwing things our way, but we’ll always be on top when the end comes.
BSG I have problems with, because it doesn’t have that “we’ll make it, just keep trying” attitude. It is more everytime you get a leg up somebody shoots you, betrays you, kicks you in the head, and kills your dog.
In B5 it’s just, well, people will never be perfect. But we’ll be better off if we keep trying.
Just my two cents. I do think JMS has travelled further down the route of pessimism in recent years, and that does bug me. But the show itself I couldn’t say that for.
I do also completly agree that negative outlooks are the hip thing right now.