I just needed to say this out load somewhere.

A villain is going back in time and completely altering the history of the characters we know.

This means all kinds of things will now be different from the canon that Orci and Kurtzman say they are following and respecting basically has ceased to exist. So they don’t need to follow or respect it. Once the timeline has been altered, they can do what ever the hell they please.

I’m thinking they did this intentionally so wouldn’t have to pay attention to any continuity points that they did want to. Like whether Kirk can drive a car or if he was a ’stack of books with legs’ as Garey Mitchel described.

That isn’t to say, I’m going to hate it. If it is indeed a well written story, then I still may enjoy it, but at this point it seems like they’ve made a cop out, so that they can take the liberties they wish to. That does not bode well.

*crosses fingers*

See you all in May.

Peace,
Rich

Mr. Orci can comment on this if he chooses, of course, but what he’s said so far seems to suggest that he and the rest of the team may have that on their minds.

339 – Yup, that scenario could work, though admittedly, it might still raise the question of how different the timeline might be if Kirk hadn’t died on the Enterprise-B. Maybe not at all, maybe a lot. And maybe it’s a can o’ worms best left unopened.

But as for openings for future stories, I think that what a lot of people forget is that the span of time covered by canonical “Classic Trek” in its entirety is not only quite long (3 decades), it has a lot of gaps in it, and those gaps would be plenty big enough to do a lot of storytelling.

For example… Let’s assume that we’re talking an open-ended, multi-picture arrangement with this cast, with a new film every 2-3 years. And let’s also assume that the producers/writers are dedicated to storytelling in the established Trekverse, at least insofar as TOS is concerned. Allowing for the passage of time in fiction as well as reality, there could be a progression much like this, running in parallel with and still not stepping on the toes of TOS and the original-cast films:

ST XI (2008; and just using numbers as shorthand, to keep things organized): The “origin story”; how the key characters came together and formed the team we came to know so well.

ST XII: In the midst of the 5-Year Mission, maybe between eps of TOS, maybe afterward. A straight-up TOS story writ large enough to be worthy of the Big Screen. (For example, just how cool a movie would _Prime Directive_ be? :) )

STXIII: The end of a trilogy, and of the 5-Year Mission. At its end, the Enterprise comes home and goes into drydock for refitting.

STXIV-STXV: Between TMP and TWOK. There’s 13 years between those films, room for several movies!

And that’s as far as I’m gonna go with this little fantasy. ;) Well, except to say that as the film’s progress, Paramount could also be doing what’s being done with several other franchises: New and/or peripheral characters could be introduced, and if the audience shows particular affinity for them, there’s the potential for spinoffs, such as is happening with Magneto and Wolverine spinning off from the core X-Men franchise. And so on.

So is there room for continued storytelling in Trek, even with the new cast? Oh, heck, yeah! And no need to be “liberated’ from existing Trek in the least. :)

Best,
Alex

Step on toes, have no sacred cows, don’t rely on the tired formula of the arch-villain vs. the federation… Start over, make it edgy, a little dark, bury ANY sacharine, nostalgic pablum…

Just as Ron Moore made Galactica bleeding-edge current, hyper-relevant, and razor-sharp… write a story that portrays a civilization you’d actually want to be a part of (not the boring white-collar, white-bread, white-skinned world of latter-day Star Treks), that portrays issues that mean something (and are the kind of issues an evolved civilization might wrestle with), and show us something HUGE and HUMAN at the same time… which is to say: Show us an evolved human (or vulcan) acting and reacting in the face of immense forces (social corruption, inner demons, natural disasters, inexorable historical trends) not just another pathetic little villainous piss-ant, like some episode of Bat Man.