Hypothetical Star Trek Show that will never be created

I guess Enterprise is part of the prime timeline with the orginal series, TNG, Next Generation, DS9 and Voyager. I have barely watched Enterpise yet. STD has caused people to look back more fondly on Enterprise "At least it's still Star Trek." Now some Star Trek fans are migrating to Orville which has the spirit of Star Trek more than Discovery.

 

The point where "Enterprise" fell through for me is this one:
The ship is named Enterprise.

Background:
Captain Picard has models of all star ships named Enterprise in his ready room. There are also painting on the walls inside the Enterprise D which show all vessels named Enterprise, including the famous sail ship, the aircraft carrier, and the Space Shuttle.
"Enterprise" breaks that. Completely unnecessary. They also (IIRC) retconned the development of the phaser, the transporters and other stuff.

Up to that point Star Trek (unlike other franchises) had a fairly well thought-through continuity. They dumped it overboard for that series because "prequels are hip".

 

That seems a little nitpicky however I agree with your next part.

I would agree that prequels are not good. I have never seen a prequel that is as good as the original. Prequels are constrained twice. First, you have less freedom to add new stuff than a sequel. Second, it is harder to make compelling drama. If we know what the story is, we already know which characters will survive or die.

That said, I am working on a prequel fluff piece for my fluff universe...I find prequels a pain in the butt. I'm concerned this won't live up to my other pieces.

 

I am a bit torn concerning prequels.
On one hand you are right, the audience does know how it will end for the main characters of the story.

But then there are numerous ways you can make them interesting:
- center them around other characters. The prequel is about the world's history, concerning the prequel characters it is original.
- make the story itself interesting. Example: Everyone knows James Bond will survive the movie, and pretty much unscathed to boot. You KNOW 007 and England will win in the end. That doesn't make the movies less exciting. For me it is the same with Solo.
I liked the fan service in that one, showing us how he met Chewie, how he met Lando, how he got his jacket, his gun, his ship and how he became what we knew. Same for the Star Wars prequels. Their main point pretty much was to see how Palpatine became the big boss and Anakin became Vader.
I don't know about you but for me the fights with Dooku or Grievous were exciting despite knowing that Obi-Wan and Anakin would live.
- related to the above: It isn't about the end result, but also about the intermediate results. In Star Wars that means you waited for Anakin to become Vader. You didn't know when and how exactly it would happen. You didn't know it would be Obi-Wan with the Lightsaber and the Lava on Mustafar. That's one way to build up tension.
You knew there would be the progression of Republic -> Clone Wars -> Empire, but you didn't know how it would happen.
- I also kinda like it when prequels tell you more about the history of the world. Maybe show a slightly different part of the world than before. Star Wars did it with different planets in the prequel trilogy, Solo, and Rogue One. So there is some world building and original parts in it.

 

Spoiler: I inadvertantly pull this to Star Wars, better tab it

I read a lot of the Expanded universe novels in the 1990s. There was a lot of material on Han Solo's backstory. Far as I'm concerned it was magnitudes better than the movie. They actually built Han's relationship with Chewbacca slowly. They didn't go from just meeting to trading quips like old buddies in five minutes of screen time like the movie.

That was about all I read for fun until they sort of jumped the shark with the Young Jedi Knights novels. Now after the new Star Wars movies are out I would take Jacen and Jaina Solo mediocre adventures over Kylo and Rey.

I quit after Young Jedi Knights. I mean they paired Han and Leia's kids with Chewbacca's nephew and a miniature protocol droid programed by See Threepio and Jacen's love interest character happens to be a warrior princess. Jacen is basically like his uncle Luke personality wise, and Jaina is her father's daughter. It's the SAME FREAKING CAST as the original series. There are hundreds of aliens in the Star Wars universe, they could have picked a team alien other than a Wookie. You don't have to have a princess. Give me someone new!

Your points about the story structure are valid for the Star Wars prequels. For all their flaws, the prequels had good story structure. My problem with the Star Wars prequels was the acting, transitions (always a wipe!), and cinematography (bland).

My problems with the new movies are mostly story structure. Every time the writers find themselves in a corner, they just invent a new power. Rey keeps developing new powers without training, Leia has her Mary Poppin's moment and Holdo is the first person in 30,000 years to consider weaponizing a hyperdrive. The acting was actually reasonable though, the script was bad.

Mahrlect, I derailed my own thread. Back on topic.

I don't have a problem with the Enterprise breaking that because I find the idea that Picard has a completionist collection kind of silly. There were probably dozens of vessels called the Enterprise in history.

This is just a limitation of Star Trek. Star Trek the Next Generation was set in the mid 2300s roughly and DS9 and Voyager are not much farther than that. It's really common for them to go to historical Earth eras in holosuites but there is next to nothing between 1960 and 2360 because it's really hard to write good sci fi futures that fit between the present and the future.

There was a DS9 episode where they go back in time to 2024. The clothes, the technology, and the politics doesn't really fit for what 2024 is probalby going to actually be. Watching that episode in 2018 the cars and computers look laughably primitive and this was a show made in the 1990s.

There is going to be some minor slipups in continuity with a show like Enterprise but at least they tried. STD is deliberately breaking and distorting (sorry "subverting and evolving") the continuity of Star Trek.

EDIT: Not having all the Enterprises in Picard's ready room is far smaller than the Star Wars prequel mess up of contradicting Leia's memories of her biological mother or Obi Wan not remembering Artoo Detoo.

 

I think the thing with Picards model ships is just a symbol. Back then I was a huge trekkie (including playing a Romulan in a Star Trek LARP, wearing a Star Trek uniform in public and such stuff), and the retcon just...
For me it was "pissing over Star Trek and its continuity". I guess I basically (over-)reacted like some people did when the Star Wars prequels or sequels were released. In the end there are probably enough good things in there that make it not too bad.
That was...20 years ago now. Maybe I can watch the show after all. One day.

 

Are you sure?
I seem to distinctively remember a scene in which Picard (or someone else) tells someone exactly that.

But then that was 25 years ago and the translated German version might not be 100% accurate either and I might also be mixing it up with Willard Decker's line from the first Star Trek movie...

 

Fair point.

Another possible explanation concerning the Enterprise collection in Picard's room would be this one:
He does have models of all the ships that had the NCC-1701 registration number. Archer's Enterprise doesn't have that one.

So yeah maybe it is time that I revise my stance on "Enterprise".
Even if they do break continuity in other things as well, one might probably make it fit, either with in-universe or understandable out-of-universe explanations, just with the Star Wars prequels or sequels.
(Example from Star Wars: there is a rather new Star Wars story kinda retelling the OT, which describes that Obi-Wan did indeed recognize R2-D2. Han IIRC overhears Obi-Wan in the Falcon talking to R2 and saying "nice to meet you again, old friend" or something. He just didn't tell Luke in order to not have explanations to make. Also there is a new-ish Darth Vader comic in which he does recognize C3PO on Bespin).

 

Ah, found an article that mentions what I said above, including quotes from the sources. Sorry for the continued Star Wars examples, but Star Wars is just too good of an example for many things we talk about.

https://reelrundown.com/movies/Why-Didnt-Obi-Wan-Recognize-R2D2-and-C3PO

 

There was an incident in the expanded universe where (back when Leia was a loyal member of the Imperial Senate) See Threepio accidentally insulted Darth Vader by asking if he was a new type of guard droid (the heavy breathing should have been a giveaway).

Anyway, as punishment for his breach of protocol (droid), Threepio was "sentenced" to work in a daycare facility. It was written years before the prequels were released but it atually fits. Anakin remembering his old droid would explain the relatively lenient Vader punishment.

Again, it reminds me of how all the characters went to their designated places at the end of episode 3. C3PO presumably spent 20 years on that same Corellian Corvette rather than being assigned to the Alderaan Royal family.


Anyway, Star Wars set the bar low for not breaking contiuity so I am willing to give Star Trek some slack...as long as they don't give Klingons double sexual organs. That is just one way STD is the lowest brow Star Trek ever.

 

Yeah, a male Klingon was peeing. They didn't show his members but there was clearly two streams of pee. Which of course led to speculation on Klingon women if they have redundant sex organs.

And it is well known that they have two hearts, two livers, and four lungs but there is a limit. After all, they only have two eyes, two ears and one mouth.

If this was the ONLY bad thing STD did to Star Trek I could forgive them this slight but that is the last straw. As far as I'm concerned Star Trek Discovery is ireedemable garbage.