Menu
What a totally unbiased Topic!
So, it's no secret that some of Star Trek sucks. 2 shows and every second movie, or so the general concensus goes. So basically I've gone and thought about it too much and here are my abriged thoughts on a few of those shows. (And maybe the films if I get bored.)
Voyager
If I were sent back in time to fix Voyager, I'd make some broad sweeping changes to the characters and story structure.
I often hear from people that they think Voyager should have been much more like "Year of Hell" and "Equinox". While enjoy both those stories, I have to disagree. A show where Voyager is constantly getting shat on and everything is morally grey would become bland and very un-Trek. These episodes are lauded because they are isolated instances that change things up. However there are things I would absolutely take from them and other episodes like "The Void".
Voyager is isolated, without hope of resupply or refit. As the story goes on, the ship itself should reflect this. Whenever the ship takes major damage, it needs to be patched with whatever's available. Often pieces of scrap metal salvage from wrecks or bought from traders. I wouldn't do this for every bang and scrape the ship takes, but when they go to the trouble of showing you a hole punched through the ship's hull, there should be a resulting discoloured patch there in the future.
However there are, I think, more important things to get right. Loss should carry weight. In the show, Voyager goes through 18 shuttles, 72 torpedoes and a hefty number of crew members (50?).
Voyager should have, at most, 4 shuttles. Losing one of these is a serious problem. Unless the shuttle is completely blown apart, the crew should go out of their way to recover downed shuttles. (Oh look, an interesting plot hook for an episode.) they can build a new shuttle, sure, but again, only using scavenged/bought parts.
I'm not adverse to the idea of the crew manufacturing their own warheads. But again, it should be a dangerous, costly process. I think it would be more interesting if they acquired alien torpedoes and retrofitted them to work with Voyagers launchers. So the combat effectiveness of the ship relies more heavily on what they can get their hands on.
And then there's the crew. Every loss is essentially irreplaceable. This is a serious problem. Particularly for Engineering. We see no less that 8 senior engineering staff die in Voyager. Their skills are not easily substituted. The crew should be overworked, possibly covering multiple roles, like Paris was doing in Sickbay.
As for food and fuel, I think the show actually did those 2 things well enough. It came up relatively frequently and in differing circumstances. So I'd be happy to let that stay more or less as it was.
Now, on to Characters:
Janeway
This is Janeway's first Captaincy. She's an experienced XO but day 1 she got dropped in the shit and made some questionable choices (the whole reason they're stuck out there in the first place) and now she's wracked with self doubt. Rather than immediately becoming Warlord Janeway, she gradually becomes more self assured and less Starfleet-y. Her early arc (the early arc for the show) is about her trying to do things by the book and slowly losing control of the situation. Eventually she learns that the rule book doesn't apply to the Delta Quadrant, so she better write a new one.
Chakotay
Less made-up bullshit about Native American tribes that don't exist and more of a focus on the Fact that Chakotay is a straight up traitor to Starfleet. He initially abuses his position of XO to set himself up as Captain, with the intention of leading the ship home himself. It takes much longer for him and Janeway to form a working relationship. All the same, he remains prickly and manipulative, sometimes coming crashing down back to... well... not earth, that'd be the end of the show... but you know what I mean.
Tuvok
More or less the same character. Picks up a lot of the slack in the early seasons and keeps the crew working. Foils some Maquis plots and makes hard calls where Janeway should, but initially doesn't. Tuvok is an old friend of Janeway and wants to support her, but genuinely feels she's not cut out for the position. Eventually she proves him wrong by getting her shit in order. Really doesn't get on with Chakotay.
Paris
I actually wouldn't change much here. His primary arc is learning to act like an actual adult rather than a petulant shit. His friendship with Kim is an important part of his characters. With that in mind...
Kim
Starts off like he did. Goody-2-shoes ensign. But he is shaped by the internal strife aboard Voyager more than anybody else. This is the only ship he's ever known and he becomes sullen and insubordinate. It falls to Paris to try and keep him engaged. Eventually he and Paris level one another out.
Be'lanna
I really like that episode in season one where she gets split into two people and it turns out she hates herself. I think I'd like to explore that more. How she only joined the Maquis because her Klingon half got her in too much trouble and stopped her from ever backing down. She initially supports Chakotay turns on him when she comes to like the Starfleet crew.
Seska
Probably the character I was most frustrated with. So much wasted potential. I shouldn't need to explain why a well-written Cardassian Obsidian Order operative trapped with a bunch of humans would be a good thing. I would have her Cardassian genealogy discovered much earlier, probably by Tuvok. Rather than siding with a bunch of space Mongolians that think she has no rights, Seska ends up being a dangerous wildcard in the struggle for power onboard the ship. Nobody is ever quite sure where her loyalties lie. For the sake of grounding her character I'd have her become an unlikely friend with another member of the crew. Perhaps Tuvok.
Doctor
Wouldn't change a damned thing.
Neelix
A really talkative, affable man. Perhaps a tad grating to the rest of the crew. But quite clearly coping mechanism for the severe PTSD he has. I'd try and explore the psychological ramifications of the shit he's seen. He literally witnessed a Moon's-worth of people get turned to jelly. That's not the kind of shit that you forget.
Kes
Didn't like the character. I'd probably drop her. Or at the very least make her less of a wide-eyed child. You know what Star Trek doesn't need more of? Children. Looking at you, Wildeman.
7
I'd make some minor changes (such as removing that contrived romance plot), but all in all I thought 7 was done well. I suppose the most important thing would be making sure that her development is consistent. In a few episodes she seemed to unlearn important lessons that she had been taught, purely because the plot needed her to act cold and aloof.
et al.
Voyager had some interesting supporting cast members that didn't get as much time as they deserved. I'd make them more integral to certain episodes. Such as having Vorrik and Carey in Be'lanna-centric episodes and so on in that fashion.
I often hear from people that they think Voyager should have been much more like "Year of Hell" and "Equinox". While enjoy both those stories, I have to disagree. A show where Voyager is constantly getting shat on and everything is morally grey would become bland and very un-Trek. These episodes are lauded because they are isolated instances that change things up. However there are things I would absolutely take from them and other episodes like "The Void".
Voyager is isolated, without hope of resupply or refit. As the story goes on, the ship itself should reflect this. Whenever the ship takes major damage, it needs to be patched with whatever's available. Often pieces of scrap metal salvage from wrecks or bought from traders. I wouldn't do this for every bang and scrape the ship takes, but when they go to the trouble of showing you a hole punched through the ship's hull, there should be a resulting discoloured patch there in the future.
However there are, I think, more important things to get right. Loss should carry weight. In the show, Voyager goes through 18 shuttles, 72 torpedoes and a hefty number of crew members (50?).
Voyager should have, at most, 4 shuttles. Losing one of these is a serious problem. Unless the shuttle is completely blown apart, the crew should go out of their way to recover downed shuttles. (Oh look, an interesting plot hook for an episode.) they can build a new shuttle, sure, but again, only using scavenged/bought parts.
I'm not adverse to the idea of the crew manufacturing their own warheads. But again, it should be a dangerous, costly process. I think it would be more interesting if they acquired alien torpedoes and retrofitted them to work with Voyagers launchers. So the combat effectiveness of the ship relies more heavily on what they can get their hands on.
And then there's the crew. Every loss is essentially irreplaceable. This is a serious problem. Particularly for Engineering. We see no less that 8 senior engineering staff die in Voyager. Their skills are not easily substituted. The crew should be overworked, possibly covering multiple roles, like Paris was doing in Sickbay.
As for food and fuel, I think the show actually did those 2 things well enough. It came up relatively frequently and in differing circumstances. So I'd be happy to let that stay more or less as it was.
Now, on to Characters:
Janeway
This is Janeway's first Captaincy. She's an experienced XO but day 1 she got dropped in the shit and made some questionable choices (the whole reason they're stuck out there in the first place) and now she's wracked with self doubt. Rather than immediately becoming Warlord Janeway, she gradually becomes more self assured and less Starfleet-y. Her early arc (the early arc for the show) is about her trying to do things by the book and slowly losing control of the situation. Eventually she learns that the rule book doesn't apply to the Delta Quadrant, so she better write a new one.
Chakotay
Less made-up bullshit about Native American tribes that don't exist and more of a focus on the Fact that Chakotay is a straight up traitor to Starfleet. He initially abuses his position of XO to set himself up as Captain, with the intention of leading the ship home himself. It takes much longer for him and Janeway to form a working relationship. All the same, he remains prickly and manipulative, sometimes coming crashing down back to... well... not earth, that'd be the end of the show... but you know what I mean.
Tuvok
More or less the same character. Picks up a lot of the slack in the early seasons and keeps the crew working. Foils some Maquis plots and makes hard calls where Janeway should, but initially doesn't. Tuvok is an old friend of Janeway and wants to support her, but genuinely feels she's not cut out for the position. Eventually she proves him wrong by getting her shit in order. Really doesn't get on with Chakotay.
Paris
I actually wouldn't change much here. His primary arc is learning to act like an actual adult rather than a petulant shit. His friendship with Kim is an important part of his characters. With that in mind...
Kim
Starts off like he did. Goody-2-shoes ensign. But he is shaped by the internal strife aboard Voyager more than anybody else. This is the only ship he's ever known and he becomes sullen and insubordinate. It falls to Paris to try and keep him engaged. Eventually he and Paris level one another out.
Be'lanna
I really like that episode in season one where she gets split into two people and it turns out she hates herself. I think I'd like to explore that more. How she only joined the Maquis because her Klingon half got her in too much trouble and stopped her from ever backing down. She initially supports Chakotay turns on him when she comes to like the Starfleet crew.
Seska
Probably the character I was most frustrated with. So much wasted potential. I shouldn't need to explain why a well-written Cardassian Obsidian Order operative trapped with a bunch of humans would be a good thing. I would have her Cardassian genealogy discovered much earlier, probably by Tuvok. Rather than siding with a bunch of space Mongolians that think she has no rights, Seska ends up being a dangerous wildcard in the struggle for power onboard the ship. Nobody is ever quite sure where her loyalties lie. For the sake of grounding her character I'd have her become an unlikely friend with another member of the crew. Perhaps Tuvok.
Doctor
Wouldn't change a damned thing.
Neelix
A really talkative, affable man. Perhaps a tad grating to the rest of the crew. But quite clearly coping mechanism for the severe PTSD he has. I'd try and explore the psychological ramifications of the shit he's seen. He literally witnessed a Moon's-worth of people get turned to jelly. That's not the kind of shit that you forget.
Kes
Didn't like the character. I'd probably drop her. Or at the very least make her less of a wide-eyed child. You know what Star Trek doesn't need more of? Children. Looking at you, Wildeman.
7
I'd make some minor changes (such as removing that contrived romance plot), but all in all I thought 7 was done well. I suppose the most important thing would be making sure that her development is consistent. In a few episodes she seemed to unlearn important lessons that she had been taught, purely because the plot needed her to act cold and aloof.
et al.
Voyager had some interesting supporting cast members that didn't get as much time as they deserved. I'd make them more integral to certain episodes. Such as having Vorrik and Carey in Be'lanna-centric episodes and so on in that fashion.
Enterprise
So a few threads back I wrote up a “what if you were the head producer for Voyager” piece that got me thinking. Specifically about Enterprise. I know this is uninvited and there have been a number of write ups about Enterprise in the past (some of them by me) but right now I’m in the goldilocks zone between another drink and going to bed so I can be vaguely presentable for work tomorrow so I figured I’d refine my thoughts more thoroughly.
So to begin with I’d like to address the ship. The Enterprise. In my opinion, the ship should be named something else. The Endeavour, the Discovery, the Challenger. Whatever. But there is no reason for the ship to be the Enterprise beyond fan service. And even then, that fan service doesn’t make sense because the NX-01 is never referenced withing the portraits/gold busts aboard the various incarnations of that ship. If the X330 gets a showing in other series then there is no acceptable reason (in setting) that the NX-01 has no place in future vessels of that name. For the sake of this rant I’ll continue referring to the ship as Enterprise, but just know that, had I been in charge, the ship would have almost assuredly been called the Endurance. (After Shackleton’s expedition. You know, that one that didn't at all well.)
Aesthetically, I love the Columbia class. She looks like something that fits within the Trek universe while seeming less advanced than other ships in the various other shows, Both internally and externally. The Enterprise is precisely what she should be and this is one of the things I think the show nailed.
However, they did a poor job of dealing with technology. I don’t much like the notion of the Enterprise using lasers and nukes for the first few seasons however I see and obvious midground between them and the phase canons and photonic torpedoes that became baselines within the show. We see a few other Human ships using basic plasma cannons. And the ship itself carried spatial torpedoes for the first 2 seasons anyway. I would have left the ship with these weapons for longer and Introduced the phasers and photons as they were needed. Likely in a similar storyline to Silent Enemy but later down the road.
As for shields, I quite like the polarised hull plating concept in the show. In later seasons I might have introduced some limited form of energy shielding as a game changer for Starfleet, while still affording other interstellar powers the use of it. That was one of the limitations that I thought worked well for Enterprise. Having the Enterprise be tacitly more flimsy than her Vulcan, Andorian, Xindi and Klingon counterparts made for an interesting dynamic, where the crew were forced to try diplomacy before conflict because they couldn’t actually last in a fight with a real ship.
Overarching Story
I’d have the initial seasons centre around Earth coming out from under the thumb of Vulcan while also fighting the Suliban. I’d fix the Suliban by making it apparent from the beginning that they’re just a puppet faction for the real threat, the Romulan Star Empire. No temporal shenanigans, barring the occasional one shot (Yesterdays Enterprise, Twilight and Year of Hell style stories that are self-contained).
The Klingons are a cloud on the horizon that can become a bigger deal as the story progresses. In fact I would go as far as to say that the Klingons shouldn’t be explored deeply. They are a hostile, expansionary race that believes in a sort of ethnocentric preferentialism. We shouldn’t encounter them properly until Earth has enough allies to dissuade them. You could probably introduce them into storylines like "Marauder" and "Sleeping Dogs" without involving the internal politics of the Klingon Empire.
Later seasons should deal directly with the Romulan War. Not in the DS9 sense but perhaps with the Enterprise railroaded into military missions that it isn’t fit for. Necessitating the development of new, more powerful weapons. Say like photon torpedoes and phasers.
By the actual end of the series (let’s say at the end of a planned 7 year run) the Enterprise should essentially be getting retired as a testbed design that has served its purpose and more, lighting the way for more Starfleet-y designs. See the Yorktown and Bonaventure classes for reference.
Now on to the characters. I would change nearly all of them in some way.
Archer
Archer is captain of the ship, more out of political compromise than actual competence. Other choices were unpalatable to the Vulcans or Starfleet or both. He’s a competent CO but without the grace and tact required for Earth Alliance’s first Warp five mission. He’s casually racist towards Vulcans and Earth-centric in his views. He’s not, however a lothario. Whenever the possibility for alien boning comes up, he turns it down. He’s really invested in someone at home, likely turning out to be Captain Hernandez. Which could be built up throughout the seasons before she is killed during the Romulan War, really impacting on Archer. Archer’s arc is learning to behave like a Starfleet officer and reject his prejudices.
T’pol
In order to make T’pol interesting, she can’t just be another archetypal Vulcan. She needs depth. A combined plot of her sympathy towards the Syranites, her mind rape at the hands of the high command for the events of “The Seventh” and her blossoming affection for Humans should play a much bigger role in her character in a continuous fashion. Regardless of her loyalty to Vulcan, the fact that she was essentially forcibly reprogrammed by the High Command should really play a much bigger role in her character. Episodes like “Stigma” give a good idea of how T’pol’s interactions with the High Command should go.
Tucker
Trip is, in his own estimation, the better choice for captain. He’s much more the “proper Starfleet officer” with a proven track record. Rather than being needlessly antagonistic, his arc revolves around him getting tastes of authority and coming to realise that he’s not quite the natural captain he thought he was. However this realisation comes with the eventual ability to command properly and well.
Reed
Reed’s an actual military man, recruited from a proper Earth Alliance military and with an entirely different expectation to much of the rest of the crew. He gets on with some of them, but he’s constantly aghast at Archer’s flippant attitude to ship safety and contact with unknown lifeforms. His arc is typified by conflicts with the captain and a gradual shift towards the Starfleet philosophy, perhaps punctuated by a first contact gone wrong (with the Klingons?) as a result of his itchy trigger finger.
Maywether
Travis is a Boomer. A spaceborn cargo-shipper born in to a family of cargo shippers. He comes from perhaps the most contradictory Human society within the Earth Alliance. He’s all at once comfortable with aliens but he takes a particularly dim view of certain races. Sometimes for justified reasons (Nausicans, Orions, Suliban) and sometimes just because they’re different (Andorians and Tellarites). He finds it hard to get over his boomer upbringing and trust other “undesirable races”. This is something he never really resolves but has to come to terms with as Starfleet starts to work more closely with outsiders.
Phlox
Honestly I’ve not much to add on Phlox. Perhaps a bit of a deeper exploration of the role reversal of the Denobulans. They were, at one point, genocidal monsters that nearly eradicated another species. I’d love to see more of that duality explored through him.
Hoshi
Should be a spook. Her background is perfect for it. She is perhaps the only living human to have the innate ability to learn new alien languages off of basic interactions. Starfleet Intelligence has been all over her since she was old enough to be recruited. Her timid nature can be used to excuse her from some early missions until one of the main cast, probably Archer, figures her out. She’s a master manipulator with the moral compass of a Cardassian tailor. That is to say that her heart is in the right place but her dispassion for the rest of the crew allows her to make awkward choices that the others can’t. Think Mirror Hoshi with more clothes and an actual conscience.
A solid supporting cast.
I can’t stress enough how integral I think a robust supporting cast is. Alongside Forrest, Shran and Soval we should have a relateable, recurring cast of Enterprise crewmen. People that are more related, story-wise, to their direct superior. Characters that crop up in Reed centric or Tucker-centric episodes and so forth. Which can obviously be used for greater emotional impact when members of the crew are lost. Take, for instance, the episode “The Forgotten”. The loss of Crewman Taylor is played up well for dramatic effect, despite the audience having no prior knowledge of her. But ultimately, she’s forgettable in the face of Tucker’s real guilt over his sister.
Now Imagine if we had known Crewman Taylor. Imagine if she was there throughout episodes, gaining spartan but important character development. We come to know her fears, her hopes, her dreams. Maybe we get a hint at greater character arc. A romance subplot or some such other story contrivance. And then she’s dead. No heroic sacrifice. No reason for her to die other than the fact that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The loss of that character has implicit meaning. She had a future. She had plans and ideas and she was important and now you’re mad because the character you knew and liked died. And the other characters are made because someone they consider a friend has just died. Suddenly you’re feeling exactly what the other characters are feeling and that’s a storytelling goldmine.
So yeah. All of that, I guess.
So to begin with I’d like to address the ship. The Enterprise. In my opinion, the ship should be named something else. The Endeavour, the Discovery, the Challenger. Whatever. But there is no reason for the ship to be the Enterprise beyond fan service. And even then, that fan service doesn’t make sense because the NX-01 is never referenced withing the portraits/gold busts aboard the various incarnations of that ship. If the X330 gets a showing in other series then there is no acceptable reason (in setting) that the NX-01 has no place in future vessels of that name. For the sake of this rant I’ll continue referring to the ship as Enterprise, but just know that, had I been in charge, the ship would have almost assuredly been called the Endurance. (After Shackleton’s expedition. You know, that one that didn't at all well.)
Aesthetically, I love the Columbia class. She looks like something that fits within the Trek universe while seeming less advanced than other ships in the various other shows, Both internally and externally. The Enterprise is precisely what she should be and this is one of the things I think the show nailed.
However, they did a poor job of dealing with technology. I don’t much like the notion of the Enterprise using lasers and nukes for the first few seasons however I see and obvious midground between them and the phase canons and photonic torpedoes that became baselines within the show. We see a few other Human ships using basic plasma cannons. And the ship itself carried spatial torpedoes for the first 2 seasons anyway. I would have left the ship with these weapons for longer and Introduced the phasers and photons as they were needed. Likely in a similar storyline to Silent Enemy but later down the road.
As for shields, I quite like the polarised hull plating concept in the show. In later seasons I might have introduced some limited form of energy shielding as a game changer for Starfleet, while still affording other interstellar powers the use of it. That was one of the limitations that I thought worked well for Enterprise. Having the Enterprise be tacitly more flimsy than her Vulcan, Andorian, Xindi and Klingon counterparts made for an interesting dynamic, where the crew were forced to try diplomacy before conflict because they couldn’t actually last in a fight with a real ship.
Overarching Story
I’d have the initial seasons centre around Earth coming out from under the thumb of Vulcan while also fighting the Suliban. I’d fix the Suliban by making it apparent from the beginning that they’re just a puppet faction for the real threat, the Romulan Star Empire. No temporal shenanigans, barring the occasional one shot (Yesterdays Enterprise, Twilight and Year of Hell style stories that are self-contained).
The Klingons are a cloud on the horizon that can become a bigger deal as the story progresses. In fact I would go as far as to say that the Klingons shouldn’t be explored deeply. They are a hostile, expansionary race that believes in a sort of ethnocentric preferentialism. We shouldn’t encounter them properly until Earth has enough allies to dissuade them. You could probably introduce them into storylines like "Marauder" and "Sleeping Dogs" without involving the internal politics of the Klingon Empire.
Later seasons should deal directly with the Romulan War. Not in the DS9 sense but perhaps with the Enterprise railroaded into military missions that it isn’t fit for. Necessitating the development of new, more powerful weapons. Say like photon torpedoes and phasers.
By the actual end of the series (let’s say at the end of a planned 7 year run) the Enterprise should essentially be getting retired as a testbed design that has served its purpose and more, lighting the way for more Starfleet-y designs. See the Yorktown and Bonaventure classes for reference.
Now on to the characters. I would change nearly all of them in some way.
Archer
Archer is captain of the ship, more out of political compromise than actual competence. Other choices were unpalatable to the Vulcans or Starfleet or both. He’s a competent CO but without the grace and tact required for Earth Alliance’s first Warp five mission. He’s casually racist towards Vulcans and Earth-centric in his views. He’s not, however a lothario. Whenever the possibility for alien boning comes up, he turns it down. He’s really invested in someone at home, likely turning out to be Captain Hernandez. Which could be built up throughout the seasons before she is killed during the Romulan War, really impacting on Archer. Archer’s arc is learning to behave like a Starfleet officer and reject his prejudices.
T’pol
In order to make T’pol interesting, she can’t just be another archetypal Vulcan. She needs depth. A combined plot of her sympathy towards the Syranites, her mind rape at the hands of the high command for the events of “The Seventh” and her blossoming affection for Humans should play a much bigger role in her character in a continuous fashion. Regardless of her loyalty to Vulcan, the fact that she was essentially forcibly reprogrammed by the High Command should really play a much bigger role in her character. Episodes like “Stigma” give a good idea of how T’pol’s interactions with the High Command should go.
Tucker
Trip is, in his own estimation, the better choice for captain. He’s much more the “proper Starfleet officer” with a proven track record. Rather than being needlessly antagonistic, his arc revolves around him getting tastes of authority and coming to realise that he’s not quite the natural captain he thought he was. However this realisation comes with the eventual ability to command properly and well.
Reed
Reed’s an actual military man, recruited from a proper Earth Alliance military and with an entirely different expectation to much of the rest of the crew. He gets on with some of them, but he’s constantly aghast at Archer’s flippant attitude to ship safety and contact with unknown lifeforms. His arc is typified by conflicts with the captain and a gradual shift towards the Starfleet philosophy, perhaps punctuated by a first contact gone wrong (with the Klingons?) as a result of his itchy trigger finger.
Maywether
Travis is a Boomer. A spaceborn cargo-shipper born in to a family of cargo shippers. He comes from perhaps the most contradictory Human society within the Earth Alliance. He’s all at once comfortable with aliens but he takes a particularly dim view of certain races. Sometimes for justified reasons (Nausicans, Orions, Suliban) and sometimes just because they’re different (Andorians and Tellarites). He finds it hard to get over his boomer upbringing and trust other “undesirable races”. This is something he never really resolves but has to come to terms with as Starfleet starts to work more closely with outsiders.
Phlox
Honestly I’ve not much to add on Phlox. Perhaps a bit of a deeper exploration of the role reversal of the Denobulans. They were, at one point, genocidal monsters that nearly eradicated another species. I’d love to see more of that duality explored through him.
Hoshi
Should be a spook. Her background is perfect for it. She is perhaps the only living human to have the innate ability to learn new alien languages off of basic interactions. Starfleet Intelligence has been all over her since she was old enough to be recruited. Her timid nature can be used to excuse her from some early missions until one of the main cast, probably Archer, figures her out. She’s a master manipulator with the moral compass of a Cardassian tailor. That is to say that her heart is in the right place but her dispassion for the rest of the crew allows her to make awkward choices that the others can’t. Think Mirror Hoshi with more clothes and an actual conscience.
A solid supporting cast.
I can’t stress enough how integral I think a robust supporting cast is. Alongside Forrest, Shran and Soval we should have a relateable, recurring cast of Enterprise crewmen. People that are more related, story-wise, to their direct superior. Characters that crop up in Reed centric or Tucker-centric episodes and so forth. Which can obviously be used for greater emotional impact when members of the crew are lost. Take, for instance, the episode “The Forgotten”. The loss of Crewman Taylor is played up well for dramatic effect, despite the audience having no prior knowledge of her. But ultimately, she’s forgettable in the face of Tucker’s real guilt over his sister.
Now Imagine if we had known Crewman Taylor. Imagine if she was there throughout episodes, gaining spartan but important character development. We come to know her fears, her hopes, her dreams. Maybe we get a hint at greater character arc. A romance subplot or some such other story contrivance. And then she’s dead. No heroic sacrifice. No reason for her to die other than the fact that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The loss of that character has implicit meaning. She had a future. She had plans and ideas and she was important and now you’re mad because the character you knew and liked died. And the other characters are made because someone they consider a friend has just died. Suddenly you’re feeling exactly what the other characters are feeling and that’s a storytelling goldmine.
So yeah. All of that, I guess.
First Contact
You know, this is gonna be a fairly radical departure from my previous ideas. With Enterprise and Voyager, I was trying to fix the show within the confines of the casting and decisions. And you could certainly do that for First Contact. You could make a more intelligent script that apes Best of Both Worlds and reflects the TNG tone better. But I have an idea I've bandied about for a fair while and I want to put it out there, because I think it's pretty good.
First Contact should have been a DS9 Movie.
Seriously. Think of how much more sense the plot makes then. Rather than Picard suddenly developing PTSD for the Borg, a race he confronted numerous times after his assimilation, we instead get Ben Sisko, who's 1 and only interaction with the Borg was the day he lost his wife and his whole world was destroyed. For fuck sake, the man flies around in a ship literally designed to kill the Borg. He's unstable at times and insubordinate even more so.
Next, we axe the Borg Queen because that was a terrible idea. instead, the voice of the Borg is someone Sisko knows, someone else he lost to the Borg. The rest of the DS9 crew do their damnedest to fight the Borg while SIsko spirals more and more into his need for revenge and vindication.
That way, you don't have to really drop any of the dumb action, but you can frame it better, with Sisko's irrationality treated exactly as it is, and giving the character the opportunity to grow and come to terms with his previous trauma.
Just a thought.
First Contact should have been a DS9 Movie.
Seriously. Think of how much more sense the plot makes then. Rather than Picard suddenly developing PTSD for the Borg, a race he confronted numerous times after his assimilation, we instead get Ben Sisko, who's 1 and only interaction with the Borg was the day he lost his wife and his whole world was destroyed. For fuck sake, the man flies around in a ship literally designed to kill the Borg. He's unstable at times and insubordinate even more so.
Next, we axe the Borg Queen because that was a terrible idea. instead, the voice of the Borg is someone Sisko knows, someone else he lost to the Borg. The rest of the DS9 crew do their damnedest to fight the Borg while SIsko spirals more and more into his need for revenge and vindication.
That way, you don't have to really drop any of the dumb action, but you can frame it better, with Sisko's irrationality treated exactly as it is, and giving the character the opportunity to grow and come to terms with his previous trauma.
Just a thought.
Not so Trek
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
So TFA was pretty fun when I watched it. I still think it's a decent movie. Some of the criticisms of it are total bollocks. But some of them are fair. The characters are one dimensional. The entire thing comes off as nothing but a naked money grab for your nostalgia. And, most damning, it ends up being A New Hope 2.0. where A New Hope is still the better film.
At any rate, I could go on a full rant about how J.J. Abrams doesn't understand how fucking huge space is. In fact, I probably will at some point. But I really wanted to address 1 core change I would make to the film/story that I think would significantly improve the overall. You could more or less leave the opening 2 thirds of the film as is and still have the film end up where I would take it. What I want to change is Starkiller Base.
It shouldn't exist. Now I don't mean that in the sense that it shouldn't be in the film. In fact, my idea depends on the entire first half of the film having the main characters freaking out about this massive doomsday weapon. I'd just have it turn out to be the biggest false flag ever.
I think it's important to think about the 1st Order and what they really are. They're the guys that lost the last war and most of their industrial base in the process. How do the ragged survivors of the Empire build something so complex and so resource intensive when they're supposed to be more-or-less the rebels now? Simple answer is they can't. They want to destroy the Republic, but they can't rely on Sith plan #1 to get it done. Instead, they need to be a smart, calculating enemy that can out-fox the Republic.
So Here's what I'm suggesting, in essence. Finn&co show up to a republic base with General Leia there, marshaling a massive battlefleet. With intel smuggled from the 1st Order, they plan to destroy Starkiller base before it ever fires. Everybody is pumped for a big, resounding victory. They plot a course to... wherever Starkiller base is supposed to be and when they get there all they find is an icy world with a few Star Destroyers over it. Amidst the confusion, a message is broadcast to the fleet.
It's Hux, aboard the bridge of Whatever Star Destroyer, giving his "An End to the Republic" speech. It's all been a massive ruse. While the Republic fleet is gathered here for a massive fight, the 1st Order has spread it's fleet across Republic space and promptly begun devastating world after world with orbital bombardments. The Republic fleet falls apart as individual member worlds call out for help and eventually Leia's small core fleet end up facing off against the small Star Destroyer fleet, led by Wren. SO they can have their epic confrontation, all the while knowing that the Rebuplic is dying.
I think this works on 2 levels.
1: It shows the enemy to be crafty and actually threatening. As it stands, a few X-Wings took out the planet killing doomsday weapon in a few minutes, just like before. That doesn't make the 1st order threatening. It makes the exact same badguy we've seen before. It gives a reason for the conflict to suddenly swing back in the 1st Order's favour and for the Rebels to be Rebels again.
2: It circumvents expectations. Just as the Republic fleet are expecting the same old battle, the audience are expecting the same old story. This way, the audience are taken by surprise and isn't just that the guy that's been telegrafed to be Solo's son is Solo's son.
That's my thoughts on the matter, anyway.
At any rate, I could go on a full rant about how J.J. Abrams doesn't understand how fucking huge space is. In fact, I probably will at some point. But I really wanted to address 1 core change I would make to the film/story that I think would significantly improve the overall. You could more or less leave the opening 2 thirds of the film as is and still have the film end up where I would take it. What I want to change is Starkiller Base.
It shouldn't exist. Now I don't mean that in the sense that it shouldn't be in the film. In fact, my idea depends on the entire first half of the film having the main characters freaking out about this massive doomsday weapon. I'd just have it turn out to be the biggest false flag ever.
I think it's important to think about the 1st Order and what they really are. They're the guys that lost the last war and most of their industrial base in the process. How do the ragged survivors of the Empire build something so complex and so resource intensive when they're supposed to be more-or-less the rebels now? Simple answer is they can't. They want to destroy the Republic, but they can't rely on Sith plan #1 to get it done. Instead, they need to be a smart, calculating enemy that can out-fox the Republic.
So Here's what I'm suggesting, in essence. Finn&co show up to a republic base with General Leia there, marshaling a massive battlefleet. With intel smuggled from the 1st Order, they plan to destroy Starkiller base before it ever fires. Everybody is pumped for a big, resounding victory. They plot a course to... wherever Starkiller base is supposed to be and when they get there all they find is an icy world with a few Star Destroyers over it. Amidst the confusion, a message is broadcast to the fleet.
It's Hux, aboard the bridge of Whatever Star Destroyer, giving his "An End to the Republic" speech. It's all been a massive ruse. While the Republic fleet is gathered here for a massive fight, the 1st Order has spread it's fleet across Republic space and promptly begun devastating world after world with orbital bombardments. The Republic fleet falls apart as individual member worlds call out for help and eventually Leia's small core fleet end up facing off against the small Star Destroyer fleet, led by Wren. SO they can have their epic confrontation, all the while knowing that the Rebuplic is dying.
I think this works on 2 levels.
1: It shows the enemy to be crafty and actually threatening. As it stands, a few X-Wings took out the planet killing doomsday weapon in a few minutes, just like before. That doesn't make the 1st order threatening. It makes the exact same badguy we've seen before. It gives a reason for the conflict to suddenly swing back in the 1st Order's favour and for the Rebels to be Rebels again.
2: It circumvents expectations. Just as the Republic fleet are expecting the same old battle, the audience are expecting the same old story. This way, the audience are taken by surprise and isn't just that the guy that's been telegrafed to be Solo's son is Solo's son.
That's my thoughts on the matter, anyway.