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Ira Steven Behr on Voyager, DS9 and Star Trek XI

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By GustavoLeao / 13:35, 31 May 2007 / General Star Trek

At a press round table discussing the premiere of the fourth season of his hit series The 4400, former Star Trek Deep Space Nine producer Ira Steven Behr also talked about the past and future of the Trek franchise.

"For one bright shining moment I thought there was a Camelot." he said "For Deep Space Nine they let us really mess around with the formula quite a bit and maybe that was bad or good I don't know. ...I still remember the day (and I loved Michael Piller) but the craziest thing he ever said to me is when he came into my office and said "listen Ira you are doing a great job on Deep Space Nine, but you just have to realize that Voyager is coming out and it is going to be the tentpole for the franchise and you will always be in the shadow of Voyager because that is the real Star Trek."  But I can point to the moment when they put the Maquis into the Starfleet uniforms, that was the beginning of the retreat."


"Since then it has always been trying to regain the past and that is the only thing I can say about the movie. It's the safe thing, it could be a huge hit, it could be the greatest thing of all time, but the fact that they had to go backwards into the future...the Marshal McLuahan thing where ‘we march backwards into the future' when he was talking about the media, well that is a perfect example of it by having to go back to Kirk and Spock. But I wish em luck because what ever is good for Star Trek will sell Deep Space Nine DVDs."
 

"The safer the franchise got, the weaker it got."

The full report can be found at Trek Movie Report.



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RE: Huh? Going back has been successful...too | Report this post to moderator
By: wingsabre (Odo's file, contact) @ 23:01:24 on Aug 12, 2007

Quote:
The Voyage Home, though not my favorite TREK film, was a big hit...big! It went backward in time... And, in my opinion, The Wrath of Khan is the best movie, and it is centered around a character (Khan) from an episode 15 years earlier. No new idea there...

And the best TNG movie was FIRST CONTACT, again another reach back in time. DS9's own episode "TRIAL AND TRIBULATIONS", a favorite of mine, definately didn't go forward...heck, even the "THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR" from DS9 borrowed from the past (Klingons are bad guys) to bring some ommmph to DS9...

So, sorry Mr. Behr. usually I agree with you, but on this one I do not. Borrowing from past success isn't a bad idea if done properly. Even your own 4400 touches on story aspects from other famous movies or tv-shows.

Chaotic


He didn't mean go back as in literally going back in time. I dont think Behr has anything against time travel, his 4400 series has aspects of that already. I don't think he's talking about just going back to TOS and recasting characters, I think he's saying Trek is getting stale because they've gone back to the same formulas, with every episode in essence the same.

Voyager had no character development, and simply had the alien of the week. Enterprise was an attempt to first use the formula of Kirk, Spock and Bones. There were other characters who were also interesting, but they never developed them. Fans of TOS enjoyed Scotty, Sulu, etc... Enterprise didn't give some of the cast members lines, and was in essence trying too hard to copy the past instead of honoring it.

Some would say that DS9 was too dark, but I think it was essentially one of the most representative aspects of Roddenberry's dream of the future. Roddenberry introduced the Klingon's for a reason. In TOS they were a threat to the federation, and battles were fought to preserve it. IMO he saw the future as optimistic, but when freedom requires preservation heroes arise to protect it. It was his mentality as a WWII veteran.

In TOS many of the villains were humans, even though the future was seen as optimistic, there were characters like Harry Mudd who represented the negative aspects of humans. TNG and VOY was at a different century and showed humans that are better, and the bad guys were more alien than human. Even so, humanity is never perfect, and DS9 showed that. It showed that good and freedom must some times be defended through war, as as people die, life still goes on.

Nemesis was Paramounts attempt at making another wrath of khan, but it failed because their khan was not a real khan. In star trek ii, the villain was already complex and the audience knew about the villain before hand. In Nemesis, too much of the villain had to be introduced. It would have been a much better movie if they some how brought back Lore. Hopefully, they'll do another Trek movie, with the return of Data, and Lore.

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RE: Huh? Going back has been successful...too | Report this post to moderator
By: guardian452 (Odo's file, contact) @ 14:41:37 on Jun 01, 2007

Ummm.... he's not talking about going back in time like going through a vortex or warping around the sun to literally go back in time. He's saying the franchise is falling apart and the last saving grace is to go back, as in go back to the original series and start recasting characters. Characters who are proven to have worked. He is saying that he sees that as a weakness and, as I'm reading into what he's saying, kind of desperate on Paramount's part.

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