WI: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Movie

[Plus-Sized Scribe]

So, I know that some members of the Deep Space Nine crew (such as Nana Visitor) were keen on the idea of a DS9 movie. I thought, "What if they HAD done one?"

My initial thought was adding two more episodes to Season Seven and making What You Leave Behind into the film. But that presents the problem of "continuity lockout" - it'd not do well with general audiences due to this.

So it'd have to take place after the finale, which leads to the question of how to bring everyone back together. Hmmm. Thoughts?

 

[Polish Eagle]

DS9 was always a more niche show than TNG, so any attempt to make a film would have to involve explaining the backstories to the audience. The Dominion War is just too long a story to work into it, I think. You want a compact, self-contained story.

Actually, the best way to introduce the DS9 cast might be to make First Contact a joint TNG-DS9 film.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

This was something I eagerly awaited as a teen, DS9 being my favorite Trek series and one of my favorite tv shows ever. Needless to say, I was very disappointed when it became clear by the early 2000s that such a movie would probably never be made.

I posted a thread a few months ago about what if Star Trek IX (OTL's Insurrection) had featured a Dominion War plot, and perhaps had even been a TNG-DS9 crossover film. I feel like that would have been the most likely way to get the DS9 crew into a feature film, because, as I understand it, Paramount absolutely did not think that a solo DS9 film would be commercially successful or appealing to general audiences.

 

[jahenders]

I don't think DS9 ever got the necessary ratings/audience to easily justify a movie, especially since the STNG movies weren't super successful. If a DS9 movie was seriously considered, I think they'd probably first introduce the cast/setting (to the movie going audience) in another movie, essentially making it a spin-off of (probably) a STNG movie.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

Actually, the best way to introduce the DS9 cast might be to make First Contact a joint TNG-DS9 film.

Interesting idea! How would that be incorporated specifically? Sisko teams up with the Enterprise-E crew to finally get revenge on the Borg for the death of Jennifer?

 

[Masteroftheuniverse]

Unfortunately it doesn't seem likely. TNG was most definitely the more popular series , so it's only natural to make movies out of them. Still I don't see any particular reason why a DS9 film couldn't exist in addition to the TNG movies. Maybe if Berman and Braga were removed from influence, someone more amenable to the idea could take charge?

 

[Polish Eagle]

Interesting idea! How would that be incorporated specifically? Sisko teams up with the Enterprise-E crew to finally get revenge on the Borg for the death of Jennifer?

I'm not the first to propose it, it's been mentioned on Reddit a bit, but the gist is that Sisko is in command of the Defiant, he and the crew get picked up by Enterprise E, and they go back to fight the Borg. Sisko takes on a lot of (Lily?)'s role as both he and Picard wrestle with their own demons about the Borg and their desire for revenge, culminating in Sisko finally putting duty first and talking Picard down from his whale-hunt and into destroying the Enterprise. The Prophets may or may not be involved.

In part, it would retread the ground that the DS9 pilot covered, but, as I said, you need to give the audience exposition for a DS9 film anyway--is there a way to do that without covering what the fans already know?

 

[Dan Reilly The Great]

The shame of it is that DS9 was probably much more well suited to the feature film format than TNG was. If you ever notice how they went about making the Next Gen movies, you'll notice that they first tried one that kind of fit the mold of a standard episode, and it wasn't that successful. Then they did First Contact which was all action packed and it did really well. After that, all the Next Gen films were full of stuff blowing up. The problem was that while the best Trek films did have an action element in them rather than just being about exploring the unknown, the good ones were more like thrillers. Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country were effectively techno thrillers(you could easily transplant the primary plot elements into a Tom Clancy novel. Search for Spock seemed like an attempt to fit this framework, but it wasn't as successful. Meanwhile the weak ones were all about exploration or something really philosophical(Final Frontier and The Motionless Picture) which often felt too meandering and aimless when pushed to feature length. The Voyage Home I feel like was a bit of a fluke, in that it relied on a gimmick(fish out of temporal water plot device) that happened to work at the time, but I feel like it hasn't aged as well as the other successful films.

Now First Contact didn't really fit into the techno or political thriller category, but I think it benefitted from having an excellent antagonist which was actually the other common element of the good Trek Movies; Kahn, Nero, General Chang, and even Commander Kruge were quite entertaining to watch on screen. Meanwhile the films after First Contact kind of seemed to forget what made the actiony Trek films good. Most of them had a pretty strong connection to the crew of the enterprise, but Ruafo(Insurrection), and Shinzon(Nemesis) kind of just felt like they were there because the writers said so.

DS9 however would be incredibly well suited to some kind of thriller style plot. Something with the Dominion or the Cardassians, maybe involving spies or terrorists. I do feel like the Cardassians could produce some rather nice villains in their own right and being more or less space Nazis made them effective antagonists.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

I'm not the first to propose it, it's been mentioned on Reddit a bit, but the gist is that Sisko is in command of the Defiant, he and the crew get picked up by Enterprise E, and they go back to fight the Borg. Sisko takes on a lot of (Lily?)'s role as both he and Picard wrestle with their own demons about the Borg and their desire for revenge, culminating in Sisko finally putting duty first and talking Picard down from his whale-hunt and into destroying the Enterprise. The Prophets may or may not be involved.

In part, it would retread the ground that the DS9 pilot covered, but, as I said, you need to give the audience exposition for a DS9 film anyway--is there a way to do that without covering what the fans already know?

There's always that difficult balance between pleasing fans and drawing in non-Trek audiences, a tension that later doomed Insurrection and Nemesis. For this *First Contact, having both Picard and Sisko in central roles would work great for (most) fans, but it might be a tossup for the general audience; since both are pretty strong, commanding characters, it may make the film feel overloaded. Also, with an even greater focus on the Borg and the relationship between them and these two characters, I feel like perhaps the Zefram Cochrane/time travel plot should be scrapped, and the title changed (even for OTL's First Contact, I remember being surprised that the title referred to the Vulcans and Zefram Cochrane's flight, since the trailers made it clear that the Borg were the focus of the film, so the title just ended up being a little confusing).

And would Sisko be the only DS9 character (besides Worf)? I always wondered why they didn't bring O'Brien back for the later TNG films, did Colm Meaney simply not want to participate? Would *First Contact benefit from having Kira, Bashir, or Dax as secondary characters, assigned to the Defiant?

Edit: I definitely agree that there'd be no way to avoid retreading Emissary and giving some DS9 exposition; otherwise non-Trek viewers would end up totally lost.

 

[Polish Eagle]

it does start to get too big for Cochrane, which is a pity--I rather enjoyed his character in FC.

You could work a lot of the other DS9 cast members in, and that's, I think, another problem with adapting DS9 to the big screen. TOS mostly focused on its Big Three cast members, while the TNG movies often became the Picard & Data Show--but DS9 was more of an ensemble show, where everyone got a share of the focus. Even the comic relief. It will be very hard to write DS9 films that please the fans--and even harder if they're also TNG tie-ins. You could have Kira apply her guerrilla skills aboard the Enterprise-E, only to realize that the Borg are another level up in horror and efficiency from the Cardassians. You could have Bashir recognized as an augment and throw in some commentary about discrimination.

Actually, come to think of it, those are probably the two strongest stories you could get in this scenario from the other DS9 regulars. Though the latter also requires the time travel plot.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

Yeah, good observation. It's hard to pinpoint a "core" DS9 grouping, since the writers did a great job of giving each character and various combinations of characters their own episodes and story arcs throughout the series (one of the many reasons for the high quality of the show). Worf is a given, being a TNG character, and in the dark, Borg-centered film this would be, Kira's character would also provide an interesting dynamic (perhaps some scenes where she reflects on the brutality of the Borg and the Cardassians and why species like them pose an existential threat to the "peaceful" species of the galaxy). If Odo's not otherwise occupied, it would be interesting to see the Borg interact with him as a shapeshifter; he could get around a lot of their defenses, but even if he visually impersonated a Borg drone, they would know since he wouldn't be linked to the collective. Bashir and/or Dax could round out a DS9 selection by providing a medical/scientific and tactical perspective.

Are there any plots that could have worked beyond a Borg or Dominion-focused one? How would Trek and non-Trek audiences do with a Maquis story, for example? Or a one-off "astronomical threat" story, like a time-bending anomaly or a spatial phenomenon that threatens major Federation worlds?

 

[Polish Eagle]

The problem with 'random space phenomenon' is that it's way out of the DS9 crew's jurisdiction. They had one encounter with that sort of thing in season 1, and it was just kind of bad. The tone of such a story just wouldn't work with the rest of DS9. And why would Starfleet call on them to handle it if it's outside the immediate vicinity of Bajor?

The Maquis could work, though. There's certainly room for some pathos there. Perhaps a Maquis cell acquires a Federation or Cardassian super weapon and wants to use it to secure the independence of their worlds forever--maybe something that destroys subspace, as warp drive is said to do with repeated use, that they plan to use to keep anyone from bothering their worlds ever again. But as a consequence, Bajor, the Wormhole, and quite a few other worlds will be lost. This could work as a stand-alone--no TNG tie-in. It would, in essence, be the Eddington arc, but much bigger and more obviously villainous. But the villain could be sympathetic even so, if written well. And the villain's backstory could be used to non-obstructively deliver DS9 exposition.

 

[Plus-Sized Scribe]

Alright, you guys basically took my ideas and laid them out better than I could have. The combination film seems the way to go, honestly. I could definitely see the DS9 crew working well in First Contact and Insurrection. In fact, I recall a fic wherein Insurrection was a DS9 movie... hold on. Yes, here it is, In the Bright Sunshine.

That said, I think that DS9 added into Insurrection would make it a stronger film.

 

[tenthring]

I enjoyed DS9 when it was on the air, but its not as re-watchable as TNG. TNG dealt with timeless issues. DS9 a fun story, but once you know how it turns out there isn't a ton of desire to re-watch.

 

[NoOneFamous]

It could be a movie about Sisko returning to DS9

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Initially, it was planned that Nemesis would be the penultimate TNG film, and that the next film would bring in TNG, VOY, and DS9 as one final send off to the entire era. That did not happen, because Nemesis was terrible.

 

[Masteroftheuniverse]

Initially, it was planned that Nemesis would penultimate TNG film, and that the next film would bring in TNG, VOY, and DS9 as one final send off to the entire era. That did not happen, because Nemesis was terrible.

I suppose then you'd have to make Nemesis a non-shitty film if you wanted a DS9 movie. I think you need a new creative team for that - by this point the same people had been running things since the Voyager days and they'd long ago stopped making anything of quality.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

I suppose then you'd have to make Nemesis a non-shitty film if you wanted a DS9 movie. I think you need a new creative team for that - by this point the same people had been running things since the Voyager days and they'd long ago stopped making anything of quality.

Brannon Braga turns down the offer to act as Grand Executive Producer of the Treks with Rick Berman. Ron Moore takes it instead. As in the Michael Pillar era, Berman is a suit more than a creative, who has his influence but does not allow the universe to suffer under his lack of creativity, and then blame it on network restrictions that were never there, franchise fatigue which was also not accurate, and other excuses. Moore treats VOY as he did Battlestar Galactica, making for different and better show, which gains the audience that was otherwise divided between Galactica and VOY separately. Grand success. New creative people are brought on board, rather than the creative dry spell overseen by Berman and Braga who were too offended by criticism to foster a healthy creative environment. And then maybe we do a prequel series.

In the films, Insurrection turns out better. Nemesis does not turn into a nepotism piece for Brent Spiner and his writer friend, and Paramount does not seek out Stuart Baird to edit a few movies for them, and therefore do not exchange the chance for him to direct this film. Seriously, they wanted him to serve as a film editor on some movies, and traded him a major franchise. He had directed only two films before, which were shit (US Marshals and Executive Decisions), had no understanding or knowledge of Star Trek nor a creative, interesting take to bring to it as an outsider. Star Trek therefore conquers the world.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

Alright, you guys basically took my ideas and laid them out better than I could have. The combination film seems the way to go, honestly. I could definitely see the DS9 crew working well in First Contact and Insurrection. In fact, I recall a fic wherein Insurrection was a DS9 movie... hold on. Yes, here it is, In the Bright Sunshine.

That said, I think that DS9 added into Insurrection would make it a stronger film.

Ha, that fanfic idea would almost make Insurrection watchable. But there'd still be F. Murray Abraham in one of his worst-written roles. Ru'afo was just about the worst villain in Trek history.

 

[Qhapaq Inka]

Initially, it was planned that Nemesis would be the penultimate TNG film, and that the next film would bring in TNG, VOY, and DS9 as one final send off to the entire era. That did not happen, because Nemesis was terrible.

I'd love to hear more about this, can you link some info?