Is Enterprise Heading To Canada? 335
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that the TrekUnited fan campaign a few weeks ago partnered with a group of Canadian production companies to pitch a co-production deal for 'Star Trek: Enterprise' to Paramount. As part of this deal, production would be moved up to Canada, and TrekUnited and the Canadian group would share the costs of a fifth season with Paramount. Apparently Viacom executives are considering the proposal, despite another branch of Paramount saying the cancellation was final just a few days ago."
Trek is getting long in the tooth (Score:3, Insightful)
It's over you fat dorks (Score:1, Insightful)
Get on with your lives. Paramount owns the rights, and if they say it's over, it's over.
It's not just about production costs to the studio. It's about a shitty show that ruins the image of the studio, and destroys 30 years of "Star Trek" branding.
They need to start showing Sailor Moon reruns to distract these knobs.
Re:The series is in a permanent vegetative state. (Score:1, Insightful)
Uh, if you don't like it, don't watch it. If the people who do like it, however, cannot watch it because you wanted it to die, what's in it for them?
Man I'm tired of this sort of comment getting modded up.
OMFG! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please... everyone backing this... this.... just can't go on! It's... insane!
I think it's great that people can still be passionate about a cause, but let's make it something that really affects the world we live in! How about something like backing politics that fight against the ridiculously evil things going on now that are attempting to take your freedoms away?
I know this will be marked as a troll or off-topic or something but I hope before it does, I actually reach someone.
There's a bunch of people out there that could make a BIG difference if they pull together to make it happen. It's happening now but the cause is a freaking form of entertainment that lines the pockets of people who don't know or care about you in the least. On the other hand, there are causes that could really improve peoples lives.
Truthfully, are we saying that the effort and resources used to save a TV show should be more significant than those spent in preserving our way of life or making it better? Are we REALLY just a bunch of people who would rather lose our freedoms just so that we can watch a TV show? (Bear in mind that there are plenty of religious fundies who would just LOVE to cancel Star Trek and any SciFi that questions the existance of their god.)
This is one show... I wish the same effort was put into a cause that actually improves life in the here, now and future. I find it incredulous to witness people caring so little about our government and law and so much about something so trivial.
Teela Brown Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
The Star Trek franchise has long struggled to escape the Teela Brown syndrome.
Teela Brown, from Larry Niven's "Known World" series, embodies the concept that after an SF Universe has developed enough really, really keen ideas, authors have trouble coming up with interesting plots. Teela Brown was so effectively bred for Good Luck that nothing really bad could happen to her, which is boring from a plot standpoint (Niven found a great one-time exception to the rule, but that won't work for a series.)
Original Star Trek: had a great sense of "Anything Can Happen" because no-one really knew what was Out There. And Anything DID happen, which was great for making stories! However, after the Treaty of Organia, the Gaurdian Of Time, the Doomsday Device, and Poor Lazarus jamming the door from alternate universes, it was getting harder and harder to come up with plausible threats. Thank goodness for the Klingons who were just powerful enough to be threatening whenever they were needed!
ST:TNG wisely ignored the Teela Brown stuff ... for some reason the Organians didn't interfere with the Klingons, Cardassians, Borg, etc.... Creatures who could have been series-killers were given useful limitations, e.g. Q was a joker, the Borg both too far away to bother destroying the Federation in the near future and yet close enough to do it if they felt grouchy, and so on. A nice balance of threats kept open the possibilities.
ST:DS9 overtly balanced the great powers; in some sense it was all about balancing the various cosmic threats & opportunities for the Federation. And ... most notably ... once the major conflicts were resolved (the Dominion went home and the Wormhole Aliens finished writing their novel) the series ended! There was nothing more to say on the subject, and hopefully we won't get a movie from it.
ST: Voyager got a balance of problems by throwing the ship far far away from the Federation. Once again Anything Could Happen: Federation technology could be either useless or the perfect McGuffin, whenever it was needed. But once the underlying problem was solved --- the ship got Home --- the series was over, no movies please!
ST: Enterprise got the only remaining really large era of uncertainty in the ST Universe: the past, prior to the Federation. However, we know how the story arc must end: The Federation is created. That puts a limit on the stories, e.g. the Earth can't really get blown up because someone would just have to re-build it so Kirk can get born there.
ST: Canada So what is left? Where in the ST Universe is there enough uncertainty to make interesting plots?
Re:Canada Anybody Remember Airwolf? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, many US Trek fans and unions will probably bitch like hell at the move. If it can be moved to Canada, some will reason, then why can't the costs be brought down, and it kept here in the US. Well, maybe the Canadian studios do the same or better work for slightly less up-front cost. I dunno, but for a production to leave the US and go to another country, SOMEthing is being saved. Or, someone else wants the cachet of having Trek or (name your show) on their notched belt.
Heck, even the Simpsons show has most of if not all of its artwork and animation done in South Korea. It costs a fraction of what it would in the US, and the Korean team is doing a great job, it seems.
To the dismay of a number of Trek fans, and maybe even the cast, as with Airwolf, some or all of the cast and characters might change. I wouldn't be surprised if some elites or idealists in Canada tweak Enterprise to be more CanaPrize, making Star Trek's vision of the future include MORE of the real world, instead of Hollywood's US-market-centric/pleasing view of the world.
For example:
Voyager had Harry Kim, cuz "we gotta please the economically powerful and politically savvy Asian community..." yet while Tom Paris was a misfit inmate who caused the death of Starfleet personnel, he was eventually promoted to Lieutenant on Voyager, the ship, not just the show. Clean-nosed, sometimes defiant Harry Kim? Oh, he's done what NO ensign wants to do/be: Remain ensign for SEVEN YEARS on the same ship. His not receiving a field promotion by Janeway was NOT a Federation/UFP/Starfleet issue. I DARE say it was a US-centric, hollywood "thing" about keeping Garret Wang's character "down". (No, Kim's being promoed AFTER Voyager destroyed/set back the Borg does NOT count, since his promotion was a cheesy-assed future-scene, not part of Voyagers' Fans chronology...)
Of course, that example won't fly when compared to DS9, since women were elevated, but aside from Cassidy Yates, most were not real-life ethnic minorities.
As for Enterprise, Mayweather seems to gleefully smile at the console, from most of the episodes I've seen. It is true he and Hoshi had their little moments, one of Hoshi's being to copulate with an alien and "exchange some language"...
I hope the Canadians take Trek where it's never been before: GLOBAL!
It would be nice to see an Indian in a turbin on duty, in uniform. It would be NICE to see a Black/Asian couple aboard ship, instead of the all-too-beaten/submission-forced Anglo/Sino pairings. It would be nice to see an Iraqi, or Greek, or person from Tuvalu or Vunuato and identified as such, on the ship. It would be nice to see crew members in their off-duty, and NOT just the main ensemble.
In Canada's hands, after about a year of some close-minded segment of the audience kvetching, Trek could TRULY improve, for instance, diving into details of a new and improved UN Security Council's fictional but pivotal role in rescuing the world from one-country-control, despite global markets theoretically dictating that one country cannot control the world.
Yeh, up to this point, Trek has been a franchise of US origin, and it is a venture/business driven by demographics. Well, it's time for WORLD demo
Re:OMFG! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not. I have to admit, I too question the sanity of these people who are digging deep in their pockets and spending so much time in order to rescue something from the rubbish bin, but I for one encourage them. We all, for the most part, have disposable income which we spend on entertainment, even those who only spend money on blank media.
I for one don't see this as being a bunch of zelots trying to save their TV show, but rather people who have accepted the fact that they live in a capitilist republic and are using hard core cash in order to get their voices heard rather than simply accepting the arbitrary decision of some executive. After all, we the people are the consumer, it's because of our labor they have jobs in the first place. Albeit trivial, working in common cause is something that we need to be reminded we can do. Sure in the end, it's for a TV show, but it's TV that we pay for in the products we buy. It's our TV show.
Are we REALLY just a bunch of people who would rather lose our freedoms just so that we can watch a TV show? (Bear in mind that there are plenty of religious fundies who would just LOVE to cancel Star Trek and any SciFi that questions the existance of their god.)
Hey, if they want to get together and place newspaper ads how SciFi is inspired by the saten to convience people not to believe in God then more power too them. I would think it would be a petty trivial waste of time but we need pepole like this to exercise free speech. Just because I think they are freaking luddite lunitics doesn't mean they have any less rights then I do. Just because I believe what they are doing is a form of censorship doesn't mean I or anyone else has the right to censor them for being idiots.
This is one show... I wish the same effort was put into a cause that actually improves life in the here, now and future. I find it incredulous to witness people caring so little about our government and law and so much about something so trivial.
Perhaps people need a TV show that will focus on current issues, social injustice, rather than Paris Hilton milking cows and insulting country folks. While I don't think Enterprise has done the best job of doing this, others would disagree strongly. Good telivision can promote social awareness, and if someone wants to fight for this then more power too them.
But most importantly, people getting behind a TV show bring people like you out of the woodwork reminding us that we can change the world if we just give it a chance.