Star Trek Doesn’t Need Previous Cast Approval

“Gene Roddenberry would be turning in his grave,” a quote by Bill ‘I have never watched Star Trek‘ Shatner. I’ve had my comments on the modern Star Trek (as any fan has) but this weekend I have to pick my jaw up off the floor and shut it for a second. When it comes to these big franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and hell, even Stargate, I have to say that I don’t care what the original creator thought 50, 40, or even 30 years ago when they were created. Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, and Roland Emmerich don’t come to my mind when these franchises are brought up anymore.

Gene Roddenberry would have hated the best of Star Trek, and George Lucas was involved the last time Star Wars did come back after the original trilogy and we all hate those. Meanwhile, Roland Emmerich has nothing to do with SG-1, so what is the point in asking him anything? I don’t care if someone convinced George Lucas to climb in a small ditch and writhe around for a bit, the Star Wars universe is already bloated with hundreds of books, games, short stories, modern films, the late ’90s/early ’00s films, tv shows and all. Furthermore, anyone that thought Stargate Origins was good needs to have their vision checked.

What about Gene Roddenberry? Well, I’m sorry to break it to you Rod, Darleen, and Dawn, but your dad is dead and has been for a while now. You might have noticed around late October of 1991. The only way we can “talk to the dead” is by looking at what they did or said during their life. Unless you are mentally ill and believe a block of wood with some letters on it and an odd carving moved by the operator is talking to the dead. One of the most significant pieces of information when talking about Roddenberry’s views on what Star Trek should be moving on from TOS is his story bible for TNG.

When the rebranding of Star Trek came back in 1987, it brought a fresh look, a fresh set of ideas, and a fresh cast. Make no mistake, Roddenberry was still pulling strings despite only writing 3 episodes of the 178-episode run, as he set out the groundwork with the fabled story bible (or “writer/director’s guide”), originally written in March of ’87. The story bible was full of rules and constrictions on what would or wouldn’t be in the show. One that comes to mind is the line about Starfleet personnel: “They have been selected for this mission because of the ability to transcend their human failings. We should see in them the kind of people we aspire to be ourselves.”

In that alone, I am sure 99% of all Star Trek: Discovery is gone completely. The only time I think of aspirations and that crew is to aspire to throw them into one of the 11,000,000,000 stars or uninhabitable planets from the original series. Go on a little further to the second “what doesn’t work” rule, and there is the talk of psi-forces or mysterious psychic powers, the third about not being galactic policemen, the seventh about deep space not being the local region, and so on, most of which knocks out most of Deep Space 9. I just now have to mention hopscotch and several people are getting PTSD flashbacks to “Move Along Home.”

What is my point here? Well, Gene wanted to hold a tight grip on the franchise for as long as possible. There were rumors of lawyers getting involved to keep writers from doing their own thing during the production of TNG. Roddenberry had to have such a stranglehold on the show and to make money off of it that he wrote lyrics to the theme tune which would half the royalties earned by the composer Alexander Courage. I’m not here to cast judgment on Roddenberry for that story. His justification made sense to him, and I am sure it would make sense to anyone else in his position. I am simply laying out the evidence that he liked to have control and had quite an ego.

When Gene was alive, he wanted to be sure his vision stayed true even though it may have been updated over the 20-30 years between the original series and Jean-Luc’s first and last outing aboard the Enterprise. It has been more than 30 years since his passing, and since then, a lot has happened to change the lens Star Trek has taken and will take in the coming years. I’ll happily shout about my displeasure with the “Michael Burnham cries” show that happens every single time Discovery returns. I’ll lament the awful writing that is Picard, and I’ll cheer on Lower Decks. In something that will rather annoy Bill, I’ll even say a good portion of Strange New Worlds is excellent.

What exactly am I saying here? One man’s opinion on another man’s possible opinion if he were alive does not change the fact that you enjoy something. You want “auteurism” of some kind, but you want that thing, a show, a movie franchise, a book series to continue on past the author’s death? Well, the truth is, dead men tell no new tales. Every franchise will now and forever (as long as forever is trademarked) have these peaks and troughs. As new showrunners, writers, directors, producers, and actors join the ranks, things change. Saying you like the franchise doesn’t mean you have to enjoy everything in it.

Indeed, I like Stargate for being about exploration while also allowing for a great bit of character work, but I don’t love it all. Star Wars and I have disagreements because the fanbase is just so toxic, demanding that anything that they specifically oppose is killed on the spot for the sake of gatekeeping. Star Trek isn’t much better, as I’ll happily insert a Bat’leth up J.J Abrams’ torpedo tube and Alex Kurtzman will be waterboarded for his crimes against humanity, otherwise known as Into Darkness. Expanding this beyond those three: Doctor Who has changed time and time again, Futurama has more lives than a cat, and so on. Personally, I am tired of it and I think the stories have been exhausted.

Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard’s The Walking Dead has had three spin-offs already, with a fourth coming next month. At Comic-Con this year another was unveiled alongside the already untitled Daryl spin-off and whatever Isle of the Dead is. Next month a spin-off to the 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One is set to air, while Doctor Who‘s “The Zygon Invasion” will be adapted for the Target Collection books and will expand on the story next July. At some point, Michelle Yeoh is expected to reprise her role in an as-yet-untitled show about Section 31 from Discovery, while Lower Decks is expected to take on DS9 in its next look back to 90s Trek.

As long as production companies own the rights and very few personnel act as showrunner across the whole franchise, micro-managing every detail with a vision, this is what your favorite long-standing franchises will be. You may enjoy Discovery while I don’t, and that’s fine. You may enjoy the three latest main franchise films in the Star Wars saga or you may not, but that doesn’t disqualify anyone else’s opinion. You enjoy the series for X, Y, or Z reasons, and there is no reason for the militant hatred because something else exists in the franchise. I know, saying this after what I’ve said of Chris Chibnall is a touch rich, but I at least understand he will move on and the series will go on.

So what if Bill Shatner doesn’t like modern Star Trek? Looking back at his era, it was a series of clumsy metaphors and a captain that is unlikable by modern standards. Every era, not just in these shows or films but overall, has problems that should be addressed as problems. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make someone’s enjoyment of any part of that ineligible of making them a fan or of it being part of the franchise. General storytelling has evolved, and franchise storytelling has become the be-all and end-all following Marvel’s multi-billion dollar successes.

The difference that DC, The Walking Dead, Star Wars, and even Star Trek lack is that single-minded and over-arching Kevin Feige figure to guide the franchise while also staying hands-off enough. We see this with Doctor Who ever since it came back. A showrunner that controls the entire narrative and sets out ideas for half a decade can make or break the show. The difference between Feige and the Davies-Moffat-Chibnall-Davies model is that with Feige we don’t know if he’ll be replaced, but showrunners of TV get replaced all the time. We know Star Trek doesn’t have either of those because of Picard and Strange New Worlds.

For whatever reason that Bill wants to bemoan modern Star Trek, either creatively, the lack of a single vision, and so on, it doesn’t matter. He is comparing a whole different landscape of TV, which is akin to comparing an ancient Greek production of Oedipus Rex and a modern interpretation like 1969’s Funeral Parade of Roses. The concepts of the era are primitive by today’s viewpoint, the stories are similarly basic, and the way we consume TV instead of watching is a whole different beast. None of which is to say the original series is entirely bad.