Trek first...
*Casually slips this on the desk and walks away whistling* http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Re-Boot_the_Universe
Well,
that certainly has my attention. I think between this and other suggestions I've received, I have my outline.
We've had plenty of threads and timelines that address very specific culturally PODs, but someone should start a thread discussing the general consensus on how to handle broad societal trends: the dos and don'ts of speeding up or slowing down greater cultural movements, or even creating ones out of whole cloth. It's been mentioned before (I think by
@Thande ) that the assisted suicide debate was a fairly big part of the US culture wars of the 1990s, but unlike abortion or gay rights or drug legalization, people just sort of stopped talking about that issue, for the most part.
Same-sex marriage activism was also ongoing in the early-1990s, as shown by
Baehr v. Miike. The subsequent (and ultimately successful) movement beginning in the mid-2000s was actually a second round; but of course today the first round is not as well-remembered, even though many classic moments of 1990s pop culture (i.e. the lesbian wedding on
Friends) are informed by it. It's certainly something I could work with for this TL idea. One other possibility is the compromise of civil unions actually getting some traction rather than being rejected by both sides, more similar to the state of affairs in several European countries.
vultan said:
(Someone with the know-how should also do a timeline addressing how more rapid technological development might affect the world of pop culture. For instance, how an earlier Internet or more mature telecom infrastructure earlier in the 20th century would've affected the big studios and networks of an earlier era. Between the impending Disney-Fox deal, the CBS-Viacom drama, and Silicon Valley trying to muscle in on the entertainment industry, and more, we're living through a time of media consolidation that would've been unthinkable even a few decades ago. But I'm getting really off-topic.)
The challenge there is to avoid falling into the "-punk" trap, no matter how awesome a steampunk or dieselpunk or atompunk internet might be.
vultan said:
There's another reason I somewhat suspect Paramount would take another crack at a non-original crew Trek spin-off. As you've pointed out, you plan on doing something like Undiscovered Country ITTL - but after that, where do you take the movies? You could let the franchise lay fallow, or you could simply have Paramount seize the reigns and take at least the films in a more commercial direction. Without the TNG cast in a position to get their own film franchise, it seems likely that Paramount would dust off their ideas for a
Starfleet Academy prequel - basically the JJ Abrams movies around twenty years early. It's not in the Memory Alpha article, but I remember reading somewhere that the studio had planned to offer the lead roles to young A-listers in a bid to revitalize the franchise (John Cusack as Spock, for instance), which would make even more sense in this scenario. However, such actors would be less likely to agree to a new Trek TV series running coterminous to the films.
Now, if the first of the new films is successful, Paramount would still want a Trek series running alongside the movies, to keep fandom engagement up and to build synergy (it amuses me that they were
this close to hitting the Marvel Cinematic Universe model in the 1990s for Star Trek, but never quite got there - heck, that's something to consider for this TL). Hence, you come up with a low-budget spin-off to serve that purpose. Perhaps instead of jettisoning the entire old cast and starting over, you compromise by giving one of the second-tier TOS castmembers the lead role, but with new supporting players. Maybe give George Takei his USS Excelsior series, or something of that nature.
This may or may not align with what you were planning, but I thought I'd throw it out there. And if you're burnt out on J. Michael Straczynski/Babylon 5, I totally get that.
I like a lot of what you're suggesting here. So between your suggestions and the Re-Boot the Universe suggestion, I think I have a
Star Trek that I can live with, although I'm not sure how plausible it is. Nevertheless, here's a sketch:
Full disclosure, I've
also written about a quasi-
Starfleet Academy film series for
Eyes Turned Skyward as well. (Basically a lot of the ideas I had for
Star Trek that I didn't or couldn't use for TWR I used there. Which makes sense, considering that's why I started writing for
Eyes in the first place.)
The presumption is that
The Subsequent Incarnation has been cancelled and so when Paramount enters into discussions with Bennett they're willing to give
Starfleet Academy a try since they don't have a new cast waiting in the wings. However, they'd like the original cast to get a proper finale. (Or, more accurately, the original cast would like a proper finale.) So they get one in
Star Trek VI. As
@Indicus rightly points out, this film might look quite different from the OTL version as perhaps more than any other
Star Trek film it is very much a product of its time (yes,
The Voyage Home is set in 1986 explicitly but a time-travel fish-out-of-water movie would have worked regardless of when it was made). Depending on how early my POD is it might predate Chernobyl (April 26, 1986) although probably not Chernenko's death and Gorbachev taking over for him (March 10, 1985). (How many people have done TLs or PODs about someone other than Gorbachev succeeding Chernenko anyway? Or someone other than Chernenko succeeding Antropov, or someone other than Antropov succeeding Brezhnev?) Since Bennett senses that Paramount is legitimately willing to give his
Starfleet Academy idea a fair shake, he gives
Star Trek VI his all, and considering that I'd say he batted .750 as a producer of
Star Trek films IOTL, his all is good enough for a good send-off.
We'll also assume that Captain Sulu (which had been in the works as early as
Star Trek II) goes through for the sixth movie and is as well-received as it was IOTL, which means that UPN launches in 1995 with
Star Trek: Excelsior as its flagship series, and the continuation of the original series continuity. We'll also assume that the production staff from
The Subsequent Incarnation (including such undesirables as Berman and Okuda) cease their involvement with the franchise after its cancellation ITTL, thus preventing their toxic influence from continuing into future instalments.
The article you link to does indeed suggest that Bennett liked John Cusack for Spock (hard to imagine, but then again I cast
Keanu Reeves as Spock in
Eyes Turned Skyward, so who am I to talk?), and far more alarmingly,
Ethan Hawke for Kirk. Reboot continuity or not, James T. Kirk is not a Generation-Xer. (He was Kiefer Sutherland in
Eyes - I find that you need to be able to have the right combination of swagger and ego to play Kirk. Even the actors who have played him in OTL fan films have well-developed egos.) As far as I'm concerned Kirk and Spock are wide open, with the proviso that both have to be played by "name" actors not above a certain age (let's say 30).
On the other hand, surely we can agree that any rebooted cast in the early 1990s is going to include Gary Sinise as Bones, am I right?
The man is a lock.
Scotty I'm less sure about. There will be a push for an authentic Scot, although I suspect they'll be willing to "settle" for a Brit who can do a Scottish accent, as they did with Simon Pegg IOTL. He'd have to be a comic actor in his 30s. If we are going with authentic Scotsmen, I note that
Peter Capaldi (b. 1958) is the right age (and certainly enough of a genre fan), as is
John Hannah (b. 1962, who I'd say even looks the part, and has had a mostly comedic career IOTL), and (since we've mentioned one of his films earlier)
Robert Carlyle (b. 1961), a noted Method-type actor. A lot of you are probably going to push for Capaldi but I think I like Hannah the best. Assuming this film is released in 1994 he had his OTL breakthrough that same year, in the mega-hit
Four Weddings and a Funeral. No, I really think this might be the right guy. I feel it in my fingers; I feel it in my toes.
Then there's Sulu. A lot of you are probably going to suggest Garrett Wang, who... well, there could be worse choices. Although George Takei is Japanese, he has often said that Sulu represents all of Asia (as Uhura represents all of Africa despite her obvious Swahili culture), and so would not protest the casting of a Taiwanese-American actor, as he did not protest a Korean-American actor IOTL. I'm certainly open to other suggestions. But not Brandon Lee, because I suspect someone might mention him.
Uhura might be fun.
Lots of
intriguing possibilities.
Tichina Arnold and
Tisha Campbell (both of
Little Shop of Horrors and, IOTL,
Martin, which would have to be butterflied),
Garcelle Beauvais, possibly
Gabrielle Union,
Lark "Lisa Turtle" Voorhies (I'd watch
that movie!),
Jada Pinkett (yikes!),
Nia Long,
Tempestt Bledsoe, and oh yes, an obscure up-and-coming actress by the name of Halle Berry.
Assuming Chekov appears at all in this first film it's as a kid. Assuming the Iron Curtain falls I think they'd also want to cast authentic. The problem is that there aren't many Russian-born, American-raised young men in the early-1990s. Ironically, even though Anton Yelchin, cast as Chekov for the reboot films IOTL, decided to use the "Chekov" voice in tribute to Walter Koenig, I don't think whomever plays Chekov would do so ITTL. Doesn't fit the 1990s nearly as well.
So on the heels of our first reboot film we have the
Excelsior series. Which runs for... who knows. Five years? Seven? Long enough for several of the original series cast members (Kelley in 1999, and possibly Doohan in 2005) to pass on, for the reboot films to peter out and for Straczynski to come along with his "Reboot the Universe" pitch. Which means we get the original series era back on the small screen where it belongs. In the 2000s, a reboot-happy decade. In the hands of a capable showrunner in Straczynski, where the show becomes known for remaking old episodes with new twists.
How long does that run? Five years, of course. Then by the mid-to-late-2000s we enter into a new cycle.
If Paramount take control of Trek after cancelling TNG would they scrap all the expensive sets etc for that show? Why not reuse them?
They wouldn't scrap them, they'd just repurpose them, as they did IOTL. I expect that
Star Trek VI would be able to make use of more sets than usual as a result.
In the late 1970s (i.e. slap-dab in the middle of this TL), as ABC surged to first while NBC plummeted to a weak third in OTL, ABC upgraded their affiliates in a number of key markets - almost always from a third-place (or worse!) performer, often on a UHF channel (14 or higher), to a top-rated (or close second) defecting NBC affiliate on a VHF channel (2 to 13). Some of the most notable markets impacted include:
Atlanta, GA:
WXIA to
WSB
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN:
KMSP to
KSTP (1),(3)
San Diego, CA:
KCST (now KNSD) to
KGTV (2)
Charlotte, NC:
WCCB to
WSOC (3)
Jacksonville, FL:
WJKS (now WCWJ) to
WTLV (4)
Affiliating with these higher-rated, more prestigious "legacy" stations (as some were the first television stations to sign on in their respective markets in the late 40s/early 50s), combined with their newfound national ratings success, broke ABC's image as the "also-ran network."
It's also worth noting that there was no "fell swoop" mass, near-simultaneous affiliation switch like there (mostly) was OTL with Fox/New World (and their ilk) - most of the stations ABC lured over were separately owned, and the switches took place over the course of several years. (Of the stations listed above, only WSB and WSOC were under common ownership at the time. It helped that FCC regulations at the time were much stricter on station group ownership limits).
Of course, in TTL it's CBS (and not NBC) that falls off the TV ratings cliff in the late-70s. Given this, does ABC instead grab CBS affiliates in some of these markets? Or do no switches occur? It's a very interesting prospect IMO.
I like the sound of all this very much - so you can consider it canon! Thank you for taking the time to do this research.
Something I only learned when I looked up the ratings to check I was getting things right is that they certify porn. There's no "Not rated" in the UK (well, there's E for exempt, but that's kind of the opposite and mostly applies to documentaries); if your film hasn't been seen by the BBFC, it's not going to be seen by anyone else, and so there is R18, which is "18 but more emphatically", and is an entirely official certificate.
Honestly, I would say that is the logical end result of a ratings system. I personally think it's more internally consistent than the MPAA refusing to assign a rating to a film - but there's no way the MPAA would award a rating to a film they perceive as pornography, especially not with Valenti in charge.
Daibhid C said:
Come to think of it, horror's probably another factor in the UK attitude to the 18 certificate. While the old X-certificate definitely had the same associations as the US version by the end (which was part of the reason they changed it, I think), in the old days it was mostly associated with horror (in fact until 1950, it was an H-certificate). And once that association's been made, I can imagine the good folk of Hammer Films being positively horrified (as it were) if their latest monster flick was judged to be a "mere" AA (14 and older). In fact, the Hammer adaptation of Quatermass was titled The Quatermass X-periment, which looks like a deliberate attempt to draw people's attention to it: "This is going to be much more gruesome than the tame BBC version you saw on the telly."
(Nowadays, of course, The Quatermass X-periment is PG, and even Lee and Cushing's Dracula is only a 12, because things change. Some seventies Hammer Horrors did get 18-certificates when they were released on video, probably more due to this being the start of the gratuitous nudity you mention than because of the Kensington Gore.)
This is another excellent point. Many horror filmmakers - especially in the slasher-heavy 1990s (at least before post-modernism became popular with
Scream in 1997, albeit those films were
also mostly slashers) - would be dismayed that their movie did not get an NC-17. Looking at the many NC-17 films in my earlier rundown, I'd say the one quality shared by all of them (especially once you remove lighter films like
The Full Monty from the equation) is the capacity to disturb - through man's inhumanity to man (
Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, American Beauty), ludicrously over-the-top violence (Tarantino and sometimes the Coens, along with their copycats), or a twisted view on human sexuality (most of the "erotic thrillers") and if horror as a genre has one motivation it is to disturb its audiences. Another reason why
Silence of the Lambs should have an NC-17 ITTL. In fact, it'll probably be the classic "how is this only rated R"-movie ITTL, with the obvious explanation being that the dust hadn't settled yet.
Hmmm. I have... mixed feelings. I mean, lest we forget, these are the same tactics practiced by one Mr. George Lucas, and I certainly can't endorse it when
he does it... (Not to mention Okuda. But we've already discussed him.)
