"Why they rebooted Star Trek, but not Star Wars" Topic

Star Trek fans could at one point boast that their favourite property not only had a large, dense and complex backstory but that it was internally consistent.

The glitches that had appeared over time were cleverly given a plausible back story. The best example would be the Klingons, any other series would simply have claimed that they always looked like that, but they went one further sending the crew of DS9 back in time to the TOS era to show that the 1960's visual esthetic was indeed true. And a later episode revealed why Klingons did end up looking like bad parodies of Mongol Warriors in TOS.

In a world where series are routinely given a visual update (Galactica, Lost in Space etc) Star Trek managed to keep itself consistent for many years.

Another property that withstood the urge to give a series a makeover was Star Wars, they didn't retcon the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca or Yoda into something edgier and more contemporary. Granted we did see some upgraded X-Wing fighters and the New Order had brand new Stormtrooper designs, but they were clearly derived and made to look like logical upgrades of earlier designs not radical new redesigns.

So one might expect Star Trek Discovery to do the same right ?

Except they didn't.

Discovery introduced new uniforms, new ships, redesigned existing ships, made them bigger than the originals and you see more advanced tech in a pre-TOS ship than in the Next Generation set a century later.

So why did they do this change ?

TNG already diverged from TOS. The sleek geometric Enterprise designed by Jeffries gave way to flowing organic lines by Probert, And before them TMP had new uniforms and a radically different look for the Enterprise less than a decade after the events in TOS.

The Abrams version of Star Trek, though set in the same era as TOS also looked radically different, though they soon attributed these changes to a temporal change and this Star Trek is an alternative timeline, though they do show a photo of the original crew from their own movie era.

First of all Star Wars hasn't been out of the public image since the prequels and with several TV shows to bridge the gap until the sequels. Other than a few superficial changes the Falcon still looks the same as it did decades ago, it's an iconic design and people would hate it if you changed it. Yet the Enterprise, equally iconic now has four versions, the original TOS, the TMP upgrade and the Abrams and Discovery versions and until now the creators have maintained that Discovery is part of the same continuity as TOS and later.

Star Wars is still in the hands of Lucasfilm, their flims have consistently been able to keep up with other productions and while the sequels are nominally remakes of the original films they have not unduly changed the visuals because they have no incentive to change it. Lucasfilm makes Star Wars films and other than a few tweaks, they will try to preserve the formula as it goes.

Star Trek on the other hand was not seen for nearly a decade and TNG/DS9 looks just as dated as the TOS esthetic did feel at that time with Enterprise already doing some visual changes that raised a few eyebrows among fans.

Given that Star Trek is an empty box after a decade away from the screen, CBS decided to reboot it so that it would match contemporary production values and have visuals that would look good next to current series, and not try to push an outdated esthetic, no matter how much fun the TOS nod in DS9 may have been.

In short Discovery looks and feels completely different because it is not considered strong enough on its own to stand next to other shows. In a way it's like the 2018 Mustang. No matter how many people love the original the 2018 sells because it's a new version, a modern car with all the advantages and none of the disadvantages.

Fans don't really matter in this, they are on the whole a minority when it comes to audiences, a show like Star Trek cannot make money from fans alone, it must appeal to wider audiences who are now used to seeing longform stories with an arc spread over an entire season and the idea first conceived by Roddenberry that there would be no conflict among crewmembers flew right in the face of all current shows from Lost to Walking Dead where despite there being an overwhelming threat or problem that should be dealt with, the characters almost always fighting each other for various reasons and this makes for good drama.

As long as Star Wars continues to make money it will remain close to what we saw back in 1977. But some day it might fail and having gone fallow for a while it will be fully rebooted and redesigned, just like Star Trek …

Interesting analysis. I've lost interest in both
Trek and Wars. A function of growing older, I suppose.

As a fan, I never associated any expectations with Star Wars, and I just haven't liked a lot of what they did after Empire Strikes Back.

Star Trek struck me very differently as a fan, and I had very distinct expectations. The evolution and reinvention of Star trek, has been like rewriting and modernizing the bible, until you've just left out the "God" part.

IrishSerb: "has been like rewriting and modernizing the bible, until you've just left out the ‘God' part"

LOL

Except for their one or two "side" projects, Star Wars has really been a major letdown.

As for Star Trek, I haven't even bothered to watch the more recent Discovery series. However, I am starting to like the new "reboot" movies, though not all to the same level.

Dan

Except for their one or two "side" projects, Star Wars has really been a major letdown.

Side projects like this ..?

I admit it --Im a Star Trek fan and spend lots of time watching old episodes on the Space Network . Saying that I do not watch Star Trek Discovery because it isn't Trekkie enough

My biggest beef is the Klingons- ridiculous looking and so far what was on the previous series. Discovery relies more on CGI and effects gimmics than a good plot.

They did it all wrong with Star Trek, the reason Voyager had lacking viewers was simply fatigue. Star Trek had been on TV for 16 years straight. This also goes for Nemesis which was compounded by it simply not being a very good movie with a director that didn't get "Trek"

What they did wrong was instead of waiting 5-10 years. They made Enterprise, it ed with continuity and was simply bad. Those already tried of Trek didn't find anything worth wild.

After it crashed and burned Trek was ripe for pickings by predators like JJ.

If they'd simply waited a few years they could have continued the TNG universe, updated the story to fit with the 21st century. Updated the graphics and quality. Gotten rid of those cheesy episodes that have plauged all star Trek series from TOS to Enterprise.

The TNG universe was by far the most fleshed out Sci fi universe outside of books.
So much to build on.

I've daydreamed about how a new TNG era series would be, it would start with the return of the Sisko, one of the main characters (either Captain or first officer would have been a war hero from the Dominion war, this would let you "cheat" having quite action packed flashbacks with out starting a new war to satisfy those that want big space battles (like myself)

And yet they have made 840 episodesof Dr. Who.

It should be noted that Dr Who was well and truly visually rebooted in its current incarnation.

Even the deliberate retro elements have been somewhat updated as well.

I think the one element that Patrick R didn't touch on was that Star Wars gets to continue (mostly) visually unmolested because it's the benchmark for what modern SF should look like (and not in the least bit because of the excellent costuming, and area of mixed fortune for Star Trek…). They nailed it in 1977 pretty much, and iterated. The prequels got to go "more" on VFX density because it was the Republic at full tilt but still cut from reasonably whole cloth.

Star Trek had to evolve its look to compete with Star Wars (but different!) and hit and missed on several fronts as it iterated over films and series.

Enterprise was probably the best indication of where any future Star Trek series had to go thereafter, and Discovery has pretty much done so.

The fact that it is a complete visual (but not continuity…) reboot is what irks many fans (I'm more annoyed in that regard with the change in design of the Klingon ships than the Klingons themselves).

Funnily enough, many of those fans cite the Enterprise Mirror Episodes of a perfect example of keeping visual continuity, and how it would be possible to do a whole new series looking like TOS with modern effects etc. – you could, but it really only worked in the context of the novelty episodes that they were. Week in, week out maybe not so much. For all that the fan productions of "Star Trek Continues" and "Star Trek New Voyages" had excellent production values etc, they fundamentally look anachronistic and maybe not in a good way when compared to modern SF, and that is what Discovery has to compete for audience with. Trek could only keep with that kind of aesthetic (or TNG…) if it's a knowing pastiche – like "The Orville". If that had actually been produced as Star Trek (Seth MacFarlane had pitched a new Star Trek series back when CBS got interested again, so whilst neither confirmed or denied, I suspect that his Star Trek would have been roughly Orville shaped) it would be getting the same fan critical hammering as Discovery is getting, just for the reasons of "respect" for the franchise. I'm not knocking "The Orville" – I love it but it works because you know what it is riffing off of and I suspect there are few out there that watch it avidly that don't know this.

Gunfreak wrote:

They did it all wrong with Star Trek, the reason Voyager had lacking viewers was simply fatigue. Star Trek had been on TV for 16 years straight. This also goes for Nemesis which was compounded by it simply not being a very good movie with a director that didn't get "Trek"

I'd say that Voyager lacked viewers because it wasn't that good really – it was considerably more uneven than TNG and DS9, and the premise disconnected it from the Trek that people had come to love. It's lack of success was the reason it ran solo for its last few seasons (whilst the powers that be considered next steps), and probably caused most of the franchise fatigue to be honest.

What they did wrong was instead of waiting 5-10 years. They made Enterprise, it ed with continuity and was simply bad. Those already tried of Trek didn't find anything worth wild.

I'd again disagree (I rate it way higher than Voyager, and it's more rewatchable than TNG to my mind).

Its continuity "violations" are no worse than TNG's and DS9's.

It "failed" because it was the first series since TOS whose year to year survival depended on ratings rather than being locked in for a 7 year run. The 4th season was arguably its best, and it was the season whose attention to pre-existing continuity was brought out front and centre.

I'd again disagree (I rate it way higher than Voyager, and it's more rewatchable than TNG to my mind).

Well the viewers aren't in agreement with you, since it only got 4 bad seasons.
Looking at the various star trek pages official and unofficial Enterprise is ranked lowest on everything, from characters to story. While Voyager does at times rate quite well on specific aspects. But Enterprise never does.
Nobody asked for a crappy prequel, they got a bad version of something nobody wanted.

Its continuity "violations" are no worse than TNG's and DS9's.

Yes, far far worse actually, from inventing an attack on earth that there never was any evidence for in canon, to the fact that eneprise had a view screen(specifically mentioned by Kirk they didn't have back then)

The 4th season was arguably its best, and it was the season whose attention to pre-existing continuity was brought out front and center.

No it wasn't they took a story that would be bearly interesting in 42 minutes and in extreme cases made it into a 4 episode arch.
For all the bad season 3 had to go for it, at least it wasn't boring to the extreme.
The augment arch in season 4 is probably the 4 worse episodes in star trek history, unimaginably boring, and stupid to the extreme. I'd take 20 episodes of moody Janeway over stupid episodes like that.

Well the viewers aren't in agreement with you, since it only got 4 bad seasons.

I covered that above…

Also an interesting little slice of history from 1999

link

And if you look here…

link

Enterprise was doing as well if not better than Voyager ratings wise in its latter years (at least for the first couple of seasons.

Looking at the various star trek pages official and unofficial Enterprise is ranked lowest on everything, from characters to story. While Voyager does at times rate quite well on specific aspects. But Enterprise never does.

Haters gotta hate, and Trek fandom is full of 'em unfortunately. Voyager mostly is praised up as being "not Enterprise" rather than on its own merits.

Nobody asked for a crappy prequel, they got a bad version of something nobody wanted.

How do you know? Did you ask everyone? Thing is you see polarised opinion in most fandoms, anytime change occurs, and those anti always speak loudest, and perhaps out of proportion to their demographic.

Yes, far far worse actually, from inventing an attack on earth that there never was any evidence for in canon, to the fact that eneprise had a view screen(specifically mentioned by Kirk they didn't have back then)

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence ;) And quite frankly the Xindi "war" isn't anymore noteworthy in the long run than the other times the Earth has nearly been destroyed (TMP, TVH) which are NEVER mentioned again.

Kirk's statement was in relation to the Romulans – in that they never had visual communication with them, not that they had no view screens.

No it wasn't they took a story that would be bearly interesting in 42 minutes and in extreme cases made it into a 4 episode arch.
For all the bad season 3 had to go for it, at least it wasn't boring to the extreme.
The augment arch in season 4 is probably the 4 worse episodes in star trek history, unimaginably boring, and stupid to the extreme. I'd take 20 episodes of moody Janeway over stupid episodes like that.

The various arcs were 2 or 3 episodes long, none were 4, but they all inter-related. But never let facts get in the way of a good rant…

Notwithstanding TLJ and Solo, SW is still too popular to be reinvented without fan outrage of sacrilege to their beloved franchise. And even though it's been talked about for years and years, a live-action TV series set in the SW universe has never materialized (cartoons don't count). I think part of the reason is that, let's face it, the SW universe (or "sand box" as Hollywood likes to call it) just isn't a big one compared to ST's.

link

Unlike Star Trek, Star Wars has been under consistent ownership since its inception – that includes the Disney acquisition.

Star Trek was owned by Desilu Studios but broadcast on NBC, Paramount bought up the assets about a decade later and CBS became a corporate sibling through a combination of mergers. In the meantime, damn near anyone could publish a Star Trek novel as the corporate board was only interested in the revenue versus any form of consistency and canon.

When CBS and Paramount split, the ownership of Star Trek properties became convoluted. It was unclear who ultimately owned the franchise to the point that the case against the "Axanar" production. It got embarrassing. Ultimately, CBS owns the right to all of the television shows and Paramount owns all the cinematic. That is why Abrams had to "reboot" Star Trek with the "Kelvin Universe" – not that alternate universes is a new thing for Star Trek.

Star Trek: Discovery is a completely different beast. It was created as a marketing exercise to demonstrate to cable providers that CBS' library had value and that CBS could demand a higher price. ST:D was fully paid for by Netflix which has the overseas rights. All CBS cared about was spiking their numbers for CBS All Access which were in the 1.3-1.5M range.

It is theorized that ST:D may be one reason why CBS went after the fan film productions, because they planned to cover Garth's heroics at the Battle of Axanar. But, in any regard CBS only brought continuity teams in after 7 episodes had been filmed. By then, the canon had been thoroughly nuked from orbit – bigger ships, better tech, Spock's sister, fungus drive, space tardigrades that will randomly kill red shirts but not the hero…

The next Star Wars trilogy will be located somewhere else in the "known space" but will not center around the Skywalkers. There is also the live action TV series for their streaming service next year. SW has a pretty big universe if they care to resurrect any of the Legends stuff. The only reason why Star Trek seems bigger is that it has had over 30 years of 18-22 TV episodes each plus over a dozen movies.

Wyatt