IESB -- A Look at Straczynski and ZabelÆs Attempt to Reboot Star Trek

[tarasis]

Over hear, thought I would give a heads up not had time to scan it yet.

http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option...3665&Itemid=99

[Jan]

I notice that they say they've cut and pasted parts of it. Here's a link to the original document posted by Bryce Zabel. There seems to be a renewed interest in this since production is about to start on Trek 11 (I think it's 11, right?).

Jan

[tarasis]

It is 11 and thanks for that link, I had never realised it had been released.

[Jan]

As I recall, JMS wasn't thrilled that it had been. From what he said at the Heroes Con in Charlotte last year, Bryce Zabel had called him to talk to him about it. JMS said that what he heard was that Bryce wanted to talk about it in his blog which was fine with JMS but Bryce said that he'd told JMS that he wanted to *post* it online. Needless to say it hit the 'net like wildfire and there was no going back so JMS let it stay and chalked it up to a miscommunication.

Jan

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Man... I really wish JMS would have been given the helm of trek. I like Abrams, but I'd much rather have a cool reinvisioned Trek TV series than new actors that are "adding to canon".

[CeeBeeUK]

That's the first time I ever read the whole document.

When do you think JJ Abrams read it?

Some interesting stuff, it's a shame we'll never see JMS' attempt at a reboot.

[RMcD]

I would love to see a reboot of Trek, but I can't help thinking JMS has made the same mistake as JJ Abrams in thinking that it was the characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, rather than the actors that played them (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Deforest Kelley) and their chemistry that made the TOS and movie incarnations of Trek (1-6) so enjoyable.

[Jan]

That subject came up at the Trek convention I went to this past weekend and the moderator made a valid point that actors aren't necessarily irreplaceable. Look at all of the ways and actors that have done Hamlet or any other Shakespeare play you care to name.

Yes, Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley were wonderful, no doubt about that. That's a tribute to their acting skills, though. I think that if the right three actors are found, that chemistry can live again. I've seen the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic work fine in some of the novels so I don't think it's just the actors.

Jan

[Night Marshal]

I really think casting for JMS star trek would have been more an issue of finding people that fit the role rather than simply getting the biggest named actors you could. Look at Babylon five if you look at Jerry Doyle you see Garibaldi heck listen to his radio show some time and you hear some much of what we liked about that character is part of who he is. Same with Claudia, Marcus and so one through the cast list. I think JMS has good eye for seeing the kind of character a person will play even before they do. I also think that should this new trek ever get off the ground you would want some like JMS to be your show runner because he can keep big arcs together and unlike a lot of other show runners he isn't afraid to write scripts too while he's running the show.

As a side note to this i think this was been one of the downsides of the BSG in the last few years is Ron Moore how is a very good writer hasn't done much witting he puts his polish on every script but at that point there isn't much that can be done for it.

the other thing to note here is that star trek 11 is still set in universe A as JMS calls it so if they really wanted to do his idea there is nothing to keep them from doing it. Lets hope for the future nothing is going to happen for a while anyways with the strike. I hope jms is enjoying his vaction

[Garibaldi's Hair]

well, not a complete vacation ... since he still has his comics work to do. He has also been working on a novel and a play for some time now - this strike gives him the chance to do some more work on those.

Given what we know of JMS and his workaholism, the idea of him taking a vacation just seems ... wrong, somehow.