NO Trek series according to Riker.

[Lowell]

Jonathen Frakes said at a convention that CBS has no plans to create a series.

Im not shocked as with over 20 fan films and series online those at paramount probably feel why should we spend money on Trek.

DR WHO will probably still go strong on TV for the next few years.

The next film in 2016 will probably be the last for the JJ crew yet rumor is that they may be one more yet with star Wars returning to the Big screen that will be the iN thing for the rest of the decade.

Trek needs a new direction and we will see what happen with the anniversary next year?

I think trek should give up features and as other fans said go back to series.

[RJDiogenes]

I think he just said that because they turned down his pitch. CBS and Paramount are two different entities. I wouldn't be surprised at all if 2016 brings an announcement of a new series, just like 1986 did.

[huggle]

I'd appreciate a new series but the problem is that there are mostly very young writers around now. They didn't grow up with Trek as we did and so they lack a sense for what a Trek series ought to feel like. They get the general outline right but the details are all wrong. It's as if you'd tell an architect you'd like a spin-off of the Chrysler building and he gives you something like WTC. Both are skyscrapers with a square base but the look and feel is completely different.

What I'd like to see is an open competition where writers of fanfic can enter their ideas and the best 52 are made into a new series. If the background for the series is for example a major trading station or a sort of "space crossroads", much like DS9, we'd have a means to connect the single stories even if they are very different.
Let's say there's a major black hole drifting around erratically in the vicinity, then we can even justify different time frames or parallel realities.

[RJDiogenes]

That's a good point about the writers being from the wrong generation. But it could still be done. Think of it as a variation on Steampunk. Nobody alive today lived alongside Verne or Wells, but they can still find the essence of it-- if they care to. And that's the trick-- finding people who care to.

[huggle]

Caring alone doesn't suffice in my opinion. I don't read much Trek fiction but I know tons of Highlander fanfic and about 98% are terrible crap. There are only 2 or 3 authors who get it so well that the dialogues and behavioural patterns feel absolutely right.

Writers don't just to have to care but they must also have an eye or ear for speech patterns, typical body language, behavioral peculiarities of the characters, the general air of a person and an era. And they need to have an excellent command of the language to be able to give their ideas a fitting form.
Sadly, there's a global decline in the level of language spoken or written. I notice this every day in newspapers or on TV in my own country but it also strikes me when I read posts of native speakers of British or American English on TrekBBS. I deliberately exclude TerranBBS posters - the language standard over here is quite high.

The Trek series up to VOY always had a particularly high language standard. ENT used a quite different language. More up-to-date even, but as it was supposed to be a prequel of TOS it sounded utterly wrong to me. I daresay that few viewers have noticed that but I think almost everyone noticed a similar effect in the images used: the props looked far more modern than those in TOS which felt weird. It was too big a breach of continuity. And I think that was what - mostly subconsciousely perhaps - turned the older fans off.

If the new series would be set past VOY, a more modern language and sets wouldn't matter; but if it'd be supposed to be another prequel, the language and set design would have a great impact on the quality of the series.

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, the best way to do a prequel to Trek would be to make it look like Forbidden Planet, or even The Outer Limits. But that probably wouldn't sell very well. They should just jump ahead a hundred years and set it on a new frontier in another galaxy or something.

[huggle]

Forbidden Planet is a wonderful example for how a good director can build up tension and even fear without ever showing the monster.
And it also shows that you can make a top movie with a tiny budget. I bet the most expensive position on the whole bill were the exotic animals.

Nowadays, movies and even TV series have a huge budget and all kinds of special effects and CGI but they totally lack the clever directing and well-dosed thrill of these old movies. There's such a special effects overkill today - all vision and nothing to do for the brain. I much prefer an intellectual challenge.

[RJDiogenes]

I agree. Having access to these super-advanced special effects just makes people lazy. The effects should serve the story, not the other way around.

[huggle]

precisely.
LOL it shows that you are a writer. You always hit the nail on the head with a minimum of words.

[RJDiogenes]

It's true, I try to be efficient in my phrasing.

[huggle]

very Vulkan

[RJDiogenes]

Well, on the other hand, very emotional, too. Just very efficiently emotional.