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Rick Berman Asserts STAR TREK Needs Re-Invention, TREK XI Scribe Announced

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By TRexx / 16:56, 22 February 2005 / Enterprise

For the past 19 years Paramount has launched STAR TREK films and series amid continued syndication and massive video sales. "Each time we started something else, we were competing against the previous shows, so as the number started to accumulate, we started to see franchise fatigue," glums Rick Berman. "You could see it with the performance of the last film, which was a wonderful movie. You can only squeeze so many eggs out of a golden goose." Downbeat results for STAR TREK: NEMESIS have curbed the studio's appetite to move quickly on more features. Dismal ratings prompted UPN to pull the plug on ENTERPRISE.

Berman tells Variety that the whole TREK concept has been so exposed that it needs to be re-invented. Another series would be at least three years away; and if a film goes forward, it will be the first that won't be based on already established TV characters.

Roger Nygard, who put together the TREKKIES and TREKKIES 2 documentaries, believes that taking a break is the sensible course. "It's a little like after you've eaten Thanksgiving dinner, you really don't want any more turkey," he notes. "There's been so much, for so long, that the feeling is that it's OK to take a pause."

"I think we're unique in Hollywood in people working here for 12, 15 even the full 18 years, so that's the sad part -- the family we've had here splitting up," frets Berman, who has teamed with Jordan Kerner and Kerry McCluggage to create an 11th feature now at the early stages of development; Erik Jendresen has signed on as writer.

"I don't think it's going away," attests Paramount Network Television president David Stapf. "We look at this as a hiatus."

Nygard's not worried. "We asked the question in TREKKIES 2 whether STAR TREK would be around in another 50 years and it was unanimous that it would be, in some incarnation. It's worth noting that STAR TREK didn't really begin to flourish until it had been off the air for awhile the first time."

Walter Koenig, a.k.a. "Chekov" in the original series, also believes it will be back eventually. "I really don't think that the series cancellation is its ultimate demise, although that may be just a reflex on my part," he says. "At some point, everything loses a little bit of its glow but STAR TREK has shown an uncanny ability to survive."

You can read the complete article at Variety.

UPDATE: Via Paramount Studios, Variety confirmed TrekWeb staff speculation that Erik Jendresen, not "Eric Genderson," is the scribe for TREK XI (story). Variety has now changed the name on their web site.



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RE: I don't get it | Report this post to moderator
By: GustavoLeao (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 14:40:14 on Feb 23, 2005

I agree with everything you said. A prequel movie with new characters is, in my opinion, the worst idea in 40 years of Star Trek.

Gustavo

--------

TrekWeb.com Supervising Editor

gl2000@uol.com.br

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RE: I don't get it | Report this post to moderator
By: c.p. (Odo's file, contact) @ 13:42:04 on Feb 24, 2005

I loved those reunions and lived for them in the eighties. But I'm not sure that kind of Star Trek is possible anymore. I think rethinking the whole formula is the way to go. That probably means a whole new cast, though not necessarily. All I mean is that obviously if the cast was the only thing—or even the most important thing in making a Star Trek movie great—then the last two TNG films would have been much, much better. A familiar cast may not be the most important thing anymore. Getting good new actors who can help reinvigorate Star Trek could be far more valuable.

But I haven't seen or heard anything that leads me to believe that Berman is dumping former casts for any of the reasons that might be acceptable ones. I think he wants to get a hot young cast who fill their uniforms in all the right places. And that's just more of the same flawed cosmetic thinking that won't amount to anything approaching a re-realization of the Star Trek mythos (which is what it needs).

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RE: I don't get it | Report this post to moderator
By: TriOx (Odo's file, contact) @ 20:38:51 on Feb 23, 2005

"It doesn't sound like Berman's letting go, and it sounds like Paramount isn't getting rid of him."

Rick Berman is 60 years old. He will not live forever. As for Paramount not getting rid of him, Star Trek was at the height of its popularity in 1994 (Generations had just opened; TNG had just ended a great 7-year run, DSN was in its 3rd, successful season, and Voyager was in the works). Things didn't really go downhill, profit-wise, until 1999 or so. Paramount has been in a state of denial since then, thinking things would come around (after all, Star Trek has been the franchise that could not be killed; was the first TV show for which a second pilot was ordered; the first TV show that was basically "discovered" in syndication; the first and fifth movies would have put any other film series to death; etc. - who could blame the powers that be for being in denial - for thinking the slump would turn around?)

However, the powers that be only had a right to be in denial for a time. The handwriting is now on the wall. Enterprise's ratings are in the toilet; the last movie bombed. Rick Berman's "creative" fingers are over both of these endeavors. While Enterprise has gotten better in the last year, alas, this fact has not erased a slow start, which featured a slew of dreadful episodes written mostly by Berman.

Now that Star Trek is off the air and off the screen, Paramount will have an opportunity to do something it has never had to do since Roddenberry picked Berman as his successor: evaluate why Star Trek has gotten to this point. If Paramount is serious about this evaluation (and I believe that it will be; it wants to preserve its cash cow for the future), it will conclude, somehow, some day, that Berman is part of the problem. In the meantime, all of the energy that so many fans are expending now trying to resurrect Enterprise - energy being spent in vain - would be better spent, I think, writing to Paramount telling it that Rick Berman is responsible for why Star Trek has gotten to the pathetic state that it is in, and that any future Star Trek TV show/mini series/movie/whatever would be best served by other people at the helm - people such as Ira Behr or Ron Moore, for example. Even Gene Roddenberry eventually conceded control/was forced out (as of The Motion Picture), so to all of the fans who say that Berman can't be forced out, you're wrong. Anything's possible. Overbearing producers eventually write their own death sentences, and Berman is spoiling to write himself out of Star Trek's future. Here's hoping he doesn't start wrriting fast enough!


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RE: I don't get it by Jadzia-Dax @ 03:29:33 on Feb 24
    RE: I don't get it by Sennik @ 11:25:20 on Feb 24
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