Spaced Out: Re-Booting Star Trek
Admittedly, it takes a lot of nerve to offer to resurrect the "Star Trek" franchise when nobody has asked you to do that, but that's just what prolific writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski and I did back in 2004. We were working together on a network pitch for a limited series, "Cult", and we started talking about the state of the Trek universe and, before we could stop ourselves, we'd banged out a 14-page treatment called "Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe."
Chutzpah on a Cosmic Level
{Art by Nancy Tokos, Tokos Design Associates}
I know, I know. If you read the papers, you already know that the "Star Trek" flame has been passed, if you will, to an incalculably larger solar giant, J.J. Abrams ("Lost", "MI3"). You can read all about it in Daily Variety, but the bottom line is that Abrams and his writing posse appear to be going back in time to prequel status.
Project, to be penned by Abrams and "MI3" scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will center on the early days of seminal "Trek" characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission.
What with this stellar creative team at work, there doesn't seem to be any upside in sitting on our own Trek fever-dream anymore. Might as well let the fans who'd heard about it and wanted to see it, see it, so you'll find the download link later in this post. There's no big agenda since it really was just a "Hail Mary" and we've long since moved on. These days, JMS is on fire, having just sold "The Changeling" to Imagine Films for Ron Howard to direct while also writing "Spider-Man" and "Fantastic Four" and several other titles over at Marvel Comics.
Our brush with this "Star Trek" story, though, starts back in 1999, I think, when Straczynski (I call him "Joe") and I met in the first class section of a flight between Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Back then, I was executive producing the TV series, "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" and he was wrapping up a very successful run as the creator of "Babylon 5." Running a series between Canada and the U.S. can be a pretty grueling pace and the first class tickets are one of the few perks to look forward to. Except that as a writer/producer, you are usually writing next week's episode on a laptop only with more leg-room than you get when you're traveling for vacation.
Anyway, at that moment, we had a lot in common, both producing sci-fi series and, in particular, a devotion to five-year plans. JMS had crafted one for "Babylon 5" and Brent Friedman and I had done the same for our NBC alien invasion series "Dark Skies." By the time JMS and I reached our destination we'd traded contact info and said we'd get in touch.
That's what led to us agreeing to develop the "Cult" mini-series together, years later. I seem to recall having lunch at Art's Deli and our conversation veering off into the Trek situation. I have no real clue why we felt compelled to write what we wrote but, looking back, I think it's because we had all these ideas and being writers it just felt more natural to write them down than to let them go. Then, once that happened, we felt compelled to share them. Like buying lottery tickets, I guess.
Joe and I had something that everyone in Hollywood seems to pay lip service to and that's passion. We both love sci-fi, have worked different ends of the spectrum, and thought maybe, given the chance, we might combine briefly to spark a creative debate that could be useful.
Anyway, the take that JMS and I came up with included using the original characters as the new film will do, apparently, but not as young officers at Starfleet Academy. We wanted to do what they do in the world of comics, create a separate universe ("Universe A") for all the past TV and film Trek continuity in order to free ourselves creatively so we could embrace the good stuff, banish the bad, and try some new things. In our re-boot ("Universe B"), we wanted to start over, use Kirk, Spock and McCoy and others in a powerful new origin story about what it was that bonded them in such strong friendship, and show them off as you'd never seen them before. It was, admittedly, pretty audacious but here it is if you want to take a look...
You may feel like, as I do re-reading it, that it leaves you wanting more specifics. My best defense is that we held back from putting everything we were thinking into it because, if we did, what would be the point of hiring us? So we suggested and prodded and explained and held some of the point-by-point work back for a meeting or an opportunity that never came. We don't think it's perfect, and with the passage of time, I have a whole new set of thoughts, but it is a snapshot, and offered in that spirit.
This was, I'm pretty sure, before the Sci-Fi Channel had done their terrific job with "Battlestar Galactica" (which I just voted for on my Emmy ballot as Outstanding Drama for the second year in a row). If you're trying to imagine the changed tone that JMS and I were thinking about, this would be a good place to start.
As we take pains to point out in that treatment, however, JMS and I both have lots of respect for the writer/producers who brought "Star Trek" to TV in so many forms over the years, including the last on-shift at "Enterprise," Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, both of whom were wrapping up as we did this. Same admiration for J.J. Abrams and where he's likely to take the franchise. No snark intended. He's a great talent.
So, for what it's worth, please just consider this another artifact to be found somewhere in the alternate "Star Trek" universe that never was.
And thanks to Stephen Hawking for making us all respectable again. Let's get at least some of these ideas out of the movie theaters and back on the launch pads where they belong!
