http://www.latino-review.com/news/star-trek-exclusive-trek-is-going-to-return-to-tv

 

So, GREAT news, Trekkers, CBS is looking to bring Star Trek back to TV.

 

The last we heard of a Star Trek TV series, was around 2006 before the Abrams movie planted its flag and destroyed most of what we knew (except Spock and - presumably  the plot of Star Trek: Enterprise)  there were two competing versions: Bryce Zabel (writer, Dark Skies) and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, but I like crediting him as the good writer on The Real Ghostbusters) pitched a version called “Star Trek: Reboot the Universe” that actually made it online in PDF form.

 

The second was developed closer to the JJ reboot and was written by producer Geoffrey Thorne, novelist and writer on things like Leverage and Criminal Intent and was called Star Trek: Federation and was conceptualized with producer Robert Burnett, Bryan Singer (the X-Men director and producer of TV’s House among others) and Christopher (director of Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation). This other series wouldn’t reboot the Star Trek universe, but would vault it forward past the DS9 and Voyager series timelines into a far flung future where the Utopia Federation that we knew from other TV series had become boring and complacent.

 

Federation would have seen the titular group reduced to a mere peacekeeping force as the old ways broke apart. Vulcans withdraw from the United Federation of Planets and reunify with the Romulans, the Bajorans of Deep Space Nine would have also withdrawn and become a planet full of religious monks, like a “Tibet in space.” The Klingons wouldn’t be as warrior-obsessed anymore, but would instead be warrior mystics. The Ferengi would have a female Nagus. The Cardassians would have abandoned war and become an artist/philosopher race.

In essence, Federation would have advanced the timeline of the Star Trek Universe far enough in the future to re-define some of the characters that had been the same since the original series’ inception.

 

We don’t have too many details about the new Star Trek series CBS is going to get working on, but I spent some time filling you in on Federation, because it seems like the same people who made that pitch could be involved. Bryan Singer's name has been mentioned for the new CBS Trek as a possible Executive Producer through his Bad Hat Harry productions. While "Star Trek: Reboot the Universe" was invalidated by 2008's movie Trek, Star Trek: Federation still has a trio of enthusiastic producers, a script and a writer ready to go should CBS decide to give Singer the ahead to develop this new series. 

 

Robert Burnett is rumored to be working on a non-Trek project with Skydance Productions (Skydance worked with Paramount, McQuarrie and Bad Robot on M:I 5) and simultaneously keeping one foot in the Trek world. He's currently producing (one of the producers) a project independent of all previously mentioned parties,  Star Trek: Axanar, a 90-minute fan-made feature film about "The Four Years War," as mentioned in the TOS episode "Whom Gods Destroy." The film has scraped up and impressive cast and released “Prelude to Axanar” last year to show how this great venture can be pulled off on a fan-donated budget:

 

That’s the sort of Star Trek product Brunett can use as an example of how producing a reasonably-budgeted TV series set in the Star Trek Universe this day and age should be a piece of cake.

 

Back to our Federation three:

 

CBS is interested in Bryan Singer developing (and Singer reportedly loves Prelude to Axanar) and Federation co-conspirator Chris McQuarrie was still game for the project as of last December, if Twitter is to be believed.

 

As far as when to expect some sort of official announcement about who snagged the NEW Trek production job, that’s a bit tougher to predict.

 

Star Trek 3 seems to be the Trek Paramount would like us to focus on (Elba for Mogh of the House of Martok, right Simon Pegg?), Singer is only tweeting about making the new X-Men movie and McQuarrie is wrapping up the edit on Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation for later this year. The Star Trek: Federation story document still exists, though, and I’m told Geoffrey Thorne might have taken that treatment all the way to a pilot script before the project cooled, which would allow this show to get off the ground much faster.

 

For the sharp-eye’d Trek fan, all eyes are on Star Trek: Axanar (official site here) to show off what Trek on a budget can look like. If that can work and CBS can see it work, then we might get a riff on Star Trek: Federation. Either way, CBS is convinced it's a good idea to probe the idea of a Star Trek TV show, so TV Trek’s likely on the way.

 

I’ve been saying it since summer of 2005…

 

...no, I’ve been saying it since summer of 1990: There should ALWAYS be Star Trek on TV

 

Edited November 23, 20196 yr by The Unknown Poster

1 minute ago, iso_55 said:

You can if you want to. It's not a network series in Prime Time like the others.

Though technically TNG was not on a network and may not have been in prime time.

It does have an amazing episode about young Spock which they borrowed for 2009.

Edited August 9, 20169 yr by FrostyWinnipeg

Just now, FrostyWinnipeg said:

It does have an amazing episode about young Spock which they borrowed for 2009.

Cool. I've never seen it. Leonard Nimoy did this weird tv series in the 70's called Bilbo...

1 minute ago, iso_55 said:

Cool. I've never seen it. Leonard Nimoy did this weird tv series in the 70's called Bilbo...

Episode called Yesteryear written by DC Fontana.

Just now, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Episode called Yesteryear written by DC Fontana.

Fontana was one of the main writers of TOS & even did some writing for TNG so she would have a good handle on any ST story whether it be animated or actors.

The Animated Series is weird.  Some fans consider it canon but I dont think it officially is.  Its sort of canon unless another TV or film contradicts it.  It used the regular actors for the voices so it makes it sort of canon.

Fuller said he would start releasing spoilers on the 10th (tomorrow) so let's hope!

In other news, Beyond continues to plummet at the box office.

29 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

The Animated Series is weird.  Some fans consider it canon but I dont think it officially is.  Its sort of canon unless another TV or film contradicts it.  It used the regular actors for the voices so it makes it sort of canon.

Fuller said he would start releasing spoilers on the 10th (tomorrow) so let's hope!

In other news, Beyond continues to plummet at the box office.

Weird summer. Seems like a lot of movies make 60m and lose 60% next week. At least its ahead of Ghostbusters. Have not seen either.

Bad timing? Too much in play? I thought they should have released it in Sept.

There is definitely a feeling that Star Trek just isn't a tent pole summer franchise. That it's too niche and requires to much franchise knowledge to really enjoy. 

JJ was tasked with changing that and did a good job with the 2009 film. But the more you make Trek widely accessible the more you sort of thumb your nose at the hardcore fans. I think Paramount believes the hardcore fans will always be there no matter what. But we're seeing that isn't true. 

And STID alienated both hardcore fans and Mainstream fans and Beyond is suffering for it. 

Beyond is good in many ways. But the plot is shallow and wishy washy so it isn't going to be a "can't miss" word of mouth success and it wasn't suitably epic or cool enough to make hardcore fans see it a dozen times. 

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

There is definitely a feeling that Star Trek just isn't a tent pole summer franchise. That it's too niche and requires to much franchise knowledge to really enjoy.

Based on the movie totals? It's pretty much same as Jason Bourne after 2 weeks in North America.

14 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Based on the movie totals? It's pretty much same as Jason Bourne after 2 weeks in North America.

I'd argue Bourne suffers the same fate though.

Mostly, the issue with Beyond is that STID was flat awful so whatever good will 09 created with new fans was pissed away with STID.  They were starting from scratch with Beyond and it wasnt good enough to generate really positive word of mouth.  The loyalists werent going to see it ten times because it wasnt good enough, didnt celebrate the 50th Anniversary and wasnt epic in scope.  It was like an episode of TOS which was its charm in a way, but also its downfall.

The fact that during summer, everyone focuses on the next big release and in this case that was Bourne which was going to siphon off the action film demo right away doesnt help either.  But if Beyond was better, the secondary fans (like women and casuals) would have gone to see it.  And they didnt.  It wasnt good enough.  It wasnt terrible but it was wholly missable.  And that was an issue.

5 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Weird summer. Seems like a lot of movies make 60m and lose 60% next week. At least its ahead of Ghostbusters. Have not seen either.

Bad timing? Too much in play? I thought they should have released it in Sept.

Any movie with Melissa McCarthy I avoid like the plague.

Too bad.  Bridesmaids was hilarious.

7 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Too bad.  Bridesmaids was hilarious.

I couldn't stand that movie.  I didn't laugh once.  My wife and I cringed our way through it.

https://us.yahoo.com/news/bryan-fuller-unloads-details-upcoming-001235566.html

Edited August 11, 20169 yr by FrostyWinnipeg

- Will take place ten years before TOS

- Will focus on an event in Federation past that has been talked about but never explored

- will feature a female lead who will be a Lt Commander (rather then having the Ship's Captain be the lead)

- Will feature more aliens

- Will feature a gay character

- Will reference or otherwise use Section 31 to a degree

- Will use modern SFX and production design so it wont look or feel like TOS

I like everything Im hearing, except that last one.  My guess is the event will have something to do with the Romulan/Klingon alliance. 

2 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

- Will focus on an event in Federation past that has been talked about but never explored

Supposedly referenced in TOS. Let the speculation begin.

Also, will include a gay character, a Klingon Captain, female and male Admirals, English doctor and robots.  Potential for Amanda Grayson (Spock's mother) and characters such as Bones (though not in season one). Winona Ryder as Spock's mother would be interesting.

Some more interesting comments from showtunner Bryan Fuller (on something called Nerd World Report, I took these from Trekmovie.com)

Fuller revealed that the show’s main character, who was previously revealed to be a female lieutenant commander (with caveats), would be the U.S.S. Discovery’s first officer and would be referred to as “Number One” as an homage to Majel Barret Roddenberry’s character from Star Trek’s first pilot, “The Cage.” Fuller would not say exactly when during the series we will learn the actual name of the character, but that it would be during the first season. Fuller, dodging the question of whether it would be in the pilot, quoted Spock from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by concluding his remarks on the subject by saying “If minutes were hours…”

Fuller said that when he and executive producer Alex Kurtzman were initially developing the story, they felt it could take place in either timeline and that, in his opinion, the timelines were inconsequential to the story they wanted to tell. However, Fuller noted that he and Kurtzman had decided to set Discovery in the Prime Timeline in order to keep the new series independent of the films. As a matter of practicality, the writing staff for Discovery would therefore not need to keep track of what the writers associated with the films were doing, and vice versa.

Fuller felt that there was something nice about setting Discovery in the Prime Timeline as there are so many aspects of The Original Series that would be fun to explore with updated production values

Fuller has stated in previous comments that Discovery would “reimagine” Star Trek. When pressed for specifics, Fuller mentioned that one of the cool things they get to do with the show is reimagine all of the alien species that the audience has seen before in Star Trek. Fuller, along with the show’s writing staff, wanted to do something a little unique with the look of aliens.

Commenting on this, Fuller said “It’s fun for all of us who have fetishized the look of these species over the years of watching Star Trek, and it’s fun for us to put a new spin on old favorites.” When specifically pressed about the look of the Klingons in Discovery and whether they would have forehead ridges, or look like they did in The Original Series, Fuller would not comment.

Continuing, Fuller said that “we’re going to try to achieve a new look for Star Trek that is very much Star Trek, but also our interpretation of Star Trek. And I love [for] each of the shows I work on to have a distinct esthetic. So being able to apply the color palette of some of these, whether it’s Hannibal or Pushing Daisies, and going a different direction with science fiction, it just felt like it was a good place to start our signature look for the Star Trek universe and work our way forward as we continue to tell stories.”

Given the timeframe of ten years before The Original Series, Fuller said that the crew’s uniforms would be completely different that those seen in “The Cage.” Fuller continued, saying “I think that when you see it [the uniform] I can tell you specifically what the influences are, and that the styles that [they adopted] a transporter accident in their approach. A happy transporter accident. I think when you see the design, you’ll say “It’s a little bit of this, it’s a little bit of that.”

I don't want to sound negative, but I'm gonna...this sounds like garbage.  From what he's saying, to the look of the ship.  And what's with the "we won't know her real name for a while" crap?  Seriously?  Everyone is just going to call her Number One?

And since when has their ever been a Klingon Captain of a Federation Starship?  Worf was the first Klingon in Starfleet.

Uggh...this is why I hate prequels.  I wish they'd just continue on after Voyager or something.

22 minutes ago, Logan007 said:

I don't want to sound negative, but I'm gonna...this sounds like garbage.  From what he's saying, to the look of the ship.  And what's with the "we won't know her real name for a while" crap?  Seriously?  Everyone is just going to call her Number One?

And since when has their ever been a Klingon Captain of a Federation Starship?  Worf was the first Klingon in Starfleet.

Uggh...this is why I hate prequels.  I wish they'd just continue on after Voyager or something.

There was a Klingon in the comics but not canon. What he say about the ship?

Not surprised with the Number One thing.

Edited August 30, 20169 yr by FrostyWinnipeg

Well he did say the teaser was not complete and the ship was a work in progress.  The sense was he heard the overwhelming backlash to it so hopefully we get something a little better.

I was excited for it and still am.  My concern is when he says things like "re-imagining".  But we really dont know what that means.  He has said they wont even try to make their ship design and tech fit into a Pre-TOS era which concerns me.  I think we all accept modern effects make things better but it doesnt mean a pre TOS ship has to be more high tech than TOS.  It can be a contemporary to TOS design using updated technology for SFX.  For example, I really liked how the USS Kelvin looked in Star Trek 2009 (dont get me started on the Enterprise though, that was crap).

But he could mean more of how they approach the story telling.  It would seem odd to choose a Pre-TOS Prime Timeline era and then not adhere to canon.  He specifically said they wanted that time because there were TOS things to explore.  So Im hopeful he isnt just going to over-write canon.

Number One is meant as a homage to Majel Barrett's character from the original TOS pilot "The Cage".  She wasnt named in that one.  Its strange because "Number One" is going to invoke Riker a lot more than Captain Pike's first officer to most fans.  So saying its an homage to her is interesting.  If her name is meant to be a big reveal then it must mean something.  But Im having a hard time thinking of a woman that would mean something from that era of Trek.  Its possible she is the SAME "Number One" as Majel's character, transferred from the Enterprise, which would be interesting and there is a fan theory that explains it...and speculates the "event" that Discovery centres on that Fuller said was referenced in past series' but not explored could be the Rigel incident which was discussed but never shown in "The Cage", the event that caused Pike to question everything.

I have a crazy theory.  Fuller mentioned Discovery would bridge the gap between Enterprise and TOS.  But thats a weird thing to say because it's ten years before TOS but waaaaay after Enterprise (about 60 years) making it tough to bridge the gap.  He could have just meant it took place between those two series' in time.  But here's my crazy, totally impossible theory. 

"Number One" is the daughter of Trip and T'pol from Enterprise.  Fuller said she's human but her rank comes with caveats.  There is speculation Section 31 could be involved.  On Enterprise, their daughter died.  But Section 31 was involved in Enterprise and in the post series' books, Trips death was retconned to be a ruse by Section 31 (non-canon).  So Im saying the first hybrid was so important that Section 31 faked the death and recruited her, altered her physical appearance to look only human.  She retains Vulcan attributes like long life, intelligence, etc.  Thats how she could be 60 but look 30.

If her name is revealed to be Elizabeth Tucker, I was right.  Crazy, I know.  lol  But Fuller did say they "loved" thje character of Amanda Grayson (Spock's human mother), what better way to use her then some sort of mentor or adviser to someone struggling with their Vulcan/human conflict, much like Amanda's son.

I might be wrong but canon-wise was not the Enterprise around 10 years before Kirk took over.

1 minute ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

I might be wrong but canon-wise was not the Enterprise around 10 years before Kirk took over.

The NX-01 Enterprise launched in 2151.  Kirk became captain of the NCC-1701 Enterprise in 2265.

Discovery is set one year after "The Cage" and ten years before "TOS" so around 2255.  So it would be around 100 years after "Enterprise".

5 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

The NX-01 Enterprise launched in 2151.  Kirk became captain of the NCC-1701 Enterprise in 2265.

Discovery is set one year after "The Cage" and ten years before "TOS" so around 2255.  So it would be around 100 years after "Enterprise".

No Im talking about ship Enterprise. If its set after Cage then we could have a Pike meet-up not Capt. April who I think is canon.

1 minute ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

No Im talking about ship Enterprise. If its set after Cage then we could have a Pike meet-up not Capt. April who I think is canon.

Correct.  "The Cage" (the origional pillot with Captain Pike) took place about 11 years before Kirk took command (13 years before the episode "The Menagerie" where they told the story of "The Cage"). 

So there is definitely room for Pike to appear.  At the point of Discovery, Pike would still be Captain of the Enterprise, Spock would still be his science officer.  Hopefully, we do see him and its Bruce Greenwood as Pike.

38 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

"Number One" is the daughter of Trip and T'pol from Enterprise.  Fuller said she's human but her rank comes with caveats.  There is speculation Section 31 could be involved.  On Enterprise, their daughter died.  But Section 31 was involved in Enterprise and in the post series' books, Trips death was retconned to be a ruse by Section 31 (non-canon).  So Im saying the first hybrid was so important that Section 31 faked the death and recruited her, altered her physical appearance to look only human.  She retains Vulcan attributes like long life, intelligence, etc.  Thats how she could be 60 but look 30.

If her name is revealed to be Elizabeth Tucker, I was right.  Crazy, I know.  lol  But Fuller did say they "loved" thje character of Amanda Grayson (Spock's human mother), what better way to use her then some sort of mentor or adviser to someone struggling with their Vulcan/human conflict, much like Amanda's son.

That could be interesting.  Would she still be called Elizabeth Tucker though if Section 31 was trying to keep her secret?