I thought “COOL! A remake!” just like when Dark Horse did Star Wars Infinities.
“Star Wars Infinities??!?” You ask.
Yes SWI. Everything is the same until Luke shoots his proton torpedoes at the Death Star and MISSES!!!!!
I was hoping for something like……
“He changed the prefix code” or Kirk can’t get a hold of Enterprise when he got stuck inside the moon thing.

Yes the new Star Trek movie was cool but get this…(spoilers..but then again I’m sure you’ve seen it already)
IT’S JUST LIKE THE WRATH OF KHAN! Ok in some ways…
Khan and Nero (both villains have four letter names, the obvious)
both out for revenge
both have a ship more powerful than Kirks
both use bugs to put into peoples bodies
a captain dies in both
both give the good guys time to surrender or plan an incredible comeback
both refuse to surrender at the end
both have planet destroying weapons okay Genesis remakes planets
both know the enemy extremely well

anyways here’s to hoping that someone actually DOES do a “What if?” Star Trek II comic book.

The origins of life, and introducing a new race. I remember a TOS episode where a probe talks about the origins of life on earth and how they would go around seeding the galaxy/universe with life, if you can expand on this idea and make it grand and epic, that will work also.

You can wrap in there a message about humanity and the moral dillema, Kirk redeeming himself after making a mistake, prime directive violation and Pike mentors him while Spock and McCoy provide their advice/support. You must also allow Bones to say, “he’s dead jim” maybe another red shirt guy. Scotty’s sidekick or pike? I know Pike’s death would make me cry if done right.

Since Star Trek Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis and Star Trek 2009 dealth with villains/revenge perhaps go with something new as a result of the new time line/5 year mission. Something along the line on V’ger/Alien Probe/God but with your teams fast pace/suspense style. At the very end of Star Trek 2011 the ship encounters the Botany Bay and the credits roll, which can allow you to do the villian thing again in 2013.

The other idea was that Nero’s Narada borg modified ship repairs itself, pushes forward in time a few years resulting from re entering the black hole, assimilates Vulcan (which re emerged a few years into the future, including Spocks Mom who becomes the Borg queen, and you now have a pissed off Borgfied Nero that says, “Hello, Resistance is Futile” and Spock must now kill her Mom. Winona Ryder would make a kick ass viillain/borg queen. Federation must team up with Klingons to defeat the Borg in a Star Wars like trilogy. Then the Enterprise at the very end with the Klingons locate the Botany Bay, credits roll and Star Trek 2013 you have The Federation vs Khan who is leading the Klingon empire…sorry for the mental lapse.

That is if you wanted to work the Trilogy angle.

Orci, Kurtzman, Abrams, et. al:

You have managed to very credibly reboot Trek. Now boldly go where no one has gone before, and (continue to) impress the hell out of us with the next movie. Leave well-explored subjects like Khan for fanfic, novels, etc.

In fact I would go farther and say they should have taken a page from the BattleStar Galactica reboot playbook. Did we really NEED Checkov? Keep the basic character but make it more relevant. Let’s face it, in 1967 when he was introduced, it was the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union and the popularity of the Beatles. So, Trek’s producers made the pragmatic decision to introduce a Beatles-like young heartthrob who simultaneously expanded Roddenberry’s vision of diversity, by inviting the United States’ very nemesis into the crew – if we could have a Russian in the crew in 200 years, there truly was hope for mankind! Sadly the producers turned him into a walking stereotype of everything the American people perceived about the Soviets, boastful, impulsive, undisciplined.

Abrams would have done well to re-imagine this character, by leaving the canonically mis-placed boy-genius out, and re-introducing Checkov as a more relevant figure. Trek could have used another woman on the bridge for starters, with Uhura the only significant woman, beside the platinum blonde nurse Chappell who’s contribution to the series is limited to medical related stories and only adding to the number of WASPS on board. Make the Checkov character more culturally relevant. How about a Latina as navigator? Or an Indian, or if you really want to parallel the role as conceived in 1967, an young sexy Islamic – WOMAN! (Guess Paramount would have to cancel those screenings in Indonesia and the Middle East).

But we have Checkov now. They would do well to re-think nurse Chappell as a doctor (”for the last time Dr., I’m an internist, not a nurse”) to replace the position McCoy originally held under the chief medical officer when assigned to the Enterprise, and offer something other than a white platinum blonde Barbie doll. Yeoman Rand is probably a bad idea, given the origins of the naval Yeoman class and as a “secretary” for Kirk. Let’s face it folks she was only around for the first few episodes of the first season. There’s no real need for this character in the modern world, except for the female factor. I would opt for a significant new character instead who bridges some racial and/or gender demographic gap that doesn’t evoke a stereotype. Perhaps even a lesbian or gay male character. But let’s keep the alien characters to a minimum since Trek is ultimately about “us”. The last thing we want is another Wookie or Jar Jar Binks – and no androids lest we get a C-3P0 or God forbid another Data! Those characters may be fun, but don’t parallel and help us aspire to anything greater in our lives today, which is why Trek is ultimately so different than Star Wars.

Frankly I would not be disappointed if the producers decide to “surprise” us in this new unpredictable universe with the death of Checkov in the next film.

They would also be trying to create a story that fit everything that has been established and quite frankly that would deter from the goal of the movie, which is to entertain and make money. You see Batman fans never say wait a minute, Batman (Michael Keaton) defeated Joker (Jack Nicholson) in this movie and how can Joker (Heath Ledger) come back as a different actor. It’s a movie, same characters are being retold by different creative minds and be acted out by different talented actors, get a grip.

Star Trek 2009 is a box office success and has received very high reviews, I rather have this a successful movie and enjoy future films than have then do a movie that made 5-10% ppl happy.

It would be interesting to see this new reality unfold to the era of TNG where you have new actors taking on Picard and Data and telling even more entertaining stories that make you think, ok, now I see why they did that.

#325 … “Really? Guess I must’ve missed that episode where Kirk grew up conflicted following his father’s death, the whole crew came together, and Vulcan was destroyed. What season was that?”

A spark of originality or simply changes which were wholly unnecessary?
I tried resigning myself to treating this as an alternate reality, so they could bring everybody from Kirk to Chekov together (younger, Muppet Babies-style) for a new audience. But even with the shock divergences, it felt strangely formulaic at the same time. Potted moments from the other films… or “easter eggs” as they’re called. Had the Kirk promotion scene had a Wookie growling in the background, it would’ve been pure Star Wars. I was disturbed to hear Christopher Pike say “Punch it” Han Solo-style instead of “Engage”.

I don’t dispute that it was a fun movie, but clearly designed to be just that, cherrypicking moments like a Greatest Hits package, then reassembling that into a meaningful script.

Spock quoting Sherlock Holmes to back up a theory, and Delta Vega replacing Rura Penthe for epic icy panning shots – The Undiscovered Country.

Controlling Pike with eels, in a complete retread of The Wrath of Khan.

Romulan henchmen standing in for Reman ones, and a gigantic CG superweapon from Nemesis.

An opening assault on the U.S.S. Kelvin with more than a passing resemblance to several battles seen during Enterprise’s Xindi arc, right down to a villain with knowledge of the future.

As you say, there were a few stray curveballs such as the destruction of an iconic Star Trek world, just to finally drive home in an act of flame thrower redecorating, how the writers are intent on ensuring their work can never fit seemlessly in with the Original Series.

At this point, I’ll probably be forever defending to the death a return to the prime Star Trek timeline. Sure there would be contradictions, chief among them set design but then that’s just window dressing for someone like me… I don’t think designers have ever slavishly stuck with a previous look anyway, especially when there’s a time gap between productions. Likewise canon has never been at the top of my list, although it is nice when enough events gel with dialogue spoken about in the past tense… particularly the broadstrokes.

I don’t buy into the current mantra trotted out by the new film’s writers at all: Star Trek is so impenetrable a franchise, it was incapable of drawing in a new audience because of its supposed intricate backstory. That depends how you craft the tale and how in depth (read irrelevent) you want to explore. I certainly don’t believe a whole alternate universe needed to be created to achieve the goal of drawing everybody in. All they’ve done is craft a story that justifies rushing well established characters into their most famous roles in one hyperactive step, without regard to the kind of life experiences that went into earning those positions in the first place. But of course, none of that matters when there’s millions of dollars at stake.

We are told how bad prequels are because our beloved characters would never be in any real danger. That their futures are already defined. If you’re new to Star Trek would this really enter your head? An exciting tale would surely distract you, draw you in, and make you care for these characters… even if someone had told you how Kirk was going die. It’s not how they died that matters. It’s how they lived. Take bio-pics about real historical characters. You may only vaguely be aware of where these people ended up. Or take for example The Godfather II. Does splitting the narrative between past and present devalue it, knowing Vito was gunned down buying oranges in Part I? Does having seen Generations, mean you can never happily watch an episode of 60’s Trek ever again? I hate this mentality in Hollywood producers….

Really? Guess I must’ve missed that episode where Kirk grew up conflicted following his father’s death, the whole crew came together, and Vulcan was destroyed. What season was that?

“sometime years down the road, they’ll be a new producer explaining to aging cheerleaders how their boxset of JJ Abrams movies will still exist despite plans to start all over again”

LOL. Yeah, I’m sure. Paramount is already worried about how to keep all the new fans this movie has garnered. What a burden!

For me the alternate reality should simply have been a way to introduce these characters, not be the end product. But since I have no influence on returning Star Trek to its original continuity, all I can do make suggestions that fit the new rulebook. So use Khan, Gary Mitchell, The Doomsday Machine… but make the story worthwhile, more than a “Frankenstein’s Monster” of plot cobbled together from pieces of previous movies/episodes, used to almost identical effect, as I firmly continue to believe Star Trek 2009 was nothing but.

Maybe I need to take some comfort in “what goes around”… sometime years down the road, they’ll be a new producer explaining to aging cheerleaders how their boxset of JJ Abrams movies will still exist despite plans to start all over again. :(

Kudos!