[Admiral Archer]

An idea I have had bouncing around in my head for a while was, what if they had just made "Star Trek" a flat out reboot? No time-travel, no Leonard Nimoy, no Alternate timelines. And, as big of a fan as I am of this movie, and as much as I hate to even consider it, what if there had been no iBridge? No Abramsprise? Hell, what if it was exactly what people like the Saint and Zim were imagining - TOS redone for the new millennium, brick for brick?

The question is, would it have succeeded? Obviously it would have needed a hell of a good story, and the cast would have to be just as flawless as what we have now (albeit a wee bit older, since 2258 is technically almost 7 years too early for the five-year mission to begin). But would it have worked? What could it have been about, aside from a basic origin story? Would a TMP-style entity of mass destruction have been a more interesting antagonist? Would Paramount have even considered going this route? And if they had, would the non-trekkie public have bought into it? In short, would it have made the big bucks that Star Trek XI made?

Let the theories fly! And Zim, I look forward to sparring with you again!

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I think a straight reboot without all the timetravel stuff could have worked, although they still would have made visual changes, it wouldn't have looked like TOS no matter what IMO.

[jla1987]

I think it would have worked too...and really don't have much more to say about it beyond that.

[kevin]

If they had done it that way it wouldn't really have been a major problem for me at all, personally.

Would have worked just fine - it has done for Batman, Bond and a few other franchises along the way.

However, the suggestion it should have been done that way just to mollify some - I'm less supportive of. In terms of antagonists - well, V'Ger has different mileage for different people, I found little compelling about it myself - it's possible (if not likely) that the film would still have gone down the singular villain route for the first outing.

For the non-fan/new viewer there is nothing extra to buy into either - the idea behind this film is that you could watch only this version of Trek without having to go back and watch the others so a pure reboot has no advantage from that angle over the Nimoy/Spock linkage to TOS.

That part was specifically for the existing fanbase so as to point out that the TOS Prime universe hadn't been lost (a point which I will concede the writers didn't clearly enough spell out for some) and that's why that part was there.

[janeway72]

I think it would have looked desperately dated as TOS does.

[samwiseb]

The cool thing about the 'time travel' reboot, is that it was uniquely Star Trek. I can't think of any other sci-fi franchise in which you could pull that one off (Doctor Who, which I've never gotten into, already has its own reboot mechanism). If there is any reason why ST09 was the 'right' direction, it is that.

Then again, it could easily have been the wrong direction in the hands of another director who might've had a different direction he would've preferred (or perhaps no direction at all, and just took whatever assignment the studio gave him).

At best, I think the overall appeal of a flat-out reboot would be about the same... some fans would've preferred it; others would've remained hostile to the very idea of re-booting Trek. I believe Leonard Nimoy did a huge service to this movie, though. No other ST actor I know of has been more protective of his character. Paramount offered him the chance to direct ST Generations, and he declined. By just being there he was saying "Yes, ST really is back, because I said it is."

Regarding design aesthetics, I don't think even a direct prequel would look necessarily 'dated', because the studio wouldn't want that to happen. Take the bridge for example: if you wanted you could probably bring out more of the primary colors of TOS, and even the sounds of the computer 'crunching data' before it speaks (I'd love to hear that!)... but you wouldn't keep the sharp angles, the bulky chairs and panels, or the oversize plastic buttons. Whatever you do, you're basically taking the car your parents drove in 1966 and bringing into 21st century... and there are dozens of ways to do that. The 'iBridge' (use of quotation marks intentional ) being just one of them.

[janeway72]

The problem with a reboot of plain reboot of TOS is that if you take away the fact we can't travel very fast yet and just look at the computers/ tech of the time, we have already surpassed most of what they saw as being futuristic. We have touch screen technology, voice recognition etc. So to make the Enterprise look futuristic it had to go many steps further than many of us were particularly happy with. Even TNG and Voyager nowadays look very dated.

[I-Am-Zim]

I think it would have worked just fine. If they had a good story that is. And a good villain. As for the "brick for brick" part, I have never said I wanted that. A 100% faithful replication of the sets and ships from TOS would have looked silly on the big screen in a 21st century movie. What I have always maintained is that the Enterprise would have looked fantastic on the big screen if it were given more detail and realistic features. Such as those rendered by Deg3d and Vektor. The TOS bridge could easily have been updated with more modern materials, controls, and displays and looked just fine on the big screen. There was no need, in my opinion, for such a radical and sweeping redesign of the entire TOS universe as we knew it. There was also no need to resort to the time travel crutch. A straight origin story would have worked just fine. They could easily have remained true to the established continuity of the existing Star Trek universe without resorting to all the rediculous contrivances in the new movie. Unfortunately, I'm not a writer, nor am I creative enough to come up with a good enough story, or I'd write one. But there are writers in Hollywood who could have. I was very disapointed with the story direction. But that's just me. Anyway, I do believe a straight origin story would have worked just fine with the right writers/director at the helm.

[celticarchie]

They have Canonites in the new movie!!!

Oh my gosh, are they the orange lumpy ones with purple spots? Or the pink ones with the sky blue stripe?

Hang on, if they have Canonites in the next movie then they'll loose there treasured "family" audience. Think of the blood!!!

ooh, red matter make a gorefest comeback!

[kevin]

Originally Posted by samwiseb

The cool thing about the 'time travel' reboot, is that it was uniquely Star Trek. I can't think of any other sci-fi franchise in which you could pull that one off (Doctor Who, which I've never gotten into, already has its own reboot mechanism). If there is any reason why ST09 was the 'right' direction, it is that.

Then again, it could easily have been the wrong direction in the hands of another director who might've had a different direction he would've preferred (or perhaps no direction at all, and just took whatever assignment the studio gave him).

At best, I think the overall appeal of a flat-out reboot would be about the same... some fans would've preferred it; others would've remained hostile to the very idea of re-booting Trek. I believe Leonard Nimoy did a huge service to this movie, though. No other ST actor I know of has been more protective of his character. Paramount offered him the chance to direct ST Generations, and he declined. By just being there he was saying "Yes, ST really is back, because I said it is."

Regarding design aesthetics, I don't think even a direct prequel would look necessarily 'dated', because the studio wouldn't want that to happen. Take the bridge for example: if you wanted you could probably bring out more of the primary colors of TOS, and even the sounds of the computer 'crunching data' before it speaks (I'd love to hear that!)... but you wouldn't keep the sharp angles, the bulky chairs and panels, or the oversize plastic buttons. Whatever you do, you're basically taking the car your parents drove in 1966 and bringing into 21st century... and there are dozens of ways to do that. The 'iBridge' (use of quotation marks intentional ) being just one of them.

I'd agree. I think a lot of people are on board with that way of looking at it and a lot of people aren't.

Life.