I believe we have a textbook case of fanboy rumour-mongering at work here.As you well know, many, many rumors sweep out onto the web every week. A good portion of this is fannish bullshit which doesn't even get posted on reputable news sites. Still more is fannish bullshit which remains convincing enough that it gets posted but quickly contradicted. And a very small amount is actually a leak.
Unfortunately, the validity of these leaks gets questioned when more fanboy assholes pick up where that rumour left off and add more crap to it, cashing in on the initial believability of a rumour that may or may not have been truthful to begin with.
And as a result, a lot of poor souls are duped into believing crap like this, and a lot of banner money and "hit prestige" is gained by the websites that host this news.
I refer to the infamous "Paramount test session." First we get AICN's report. Factual? Possibly. AICN's batting average with Trek spoilers has historically been rather low, but that's no reason to reject it outright.
TT gets some corroboration from its "sources". Rumour still factual? Possibly. Who's to say the corroboration was actually legit and not some sick prank to boost self esteem?
More stuff shows up at AICN... more details, fleshing out of the concepts, even titles. Again, still no more valid than before.
We get yet more from AICN... a pseudo series bible about Starfleet "final solutions" and abandoned half Borg/Jem'Hadar/Section 31 supersoldiers. IMHO this is about as authentic as Cher's face. But there's no real reason to discount it outright, other than by stating I'll carpetbomb Bozeman to ash if this indeed Braga's "same but different" concept.
And then, the latest bombshell. *ahem*
quote:
"I just got back from visiting a relative in Glendale, and after taking a trip to
the local mall they had there, wound up in a focus group where, yes, they were
screening three Star Trek series concepts.
Since I see someone has already reported in about it, I'll try not to repeat
much here. Basically as was already said,when they braught us in, they had a
standard VCR setup where they would show us all some CGI animations of
ships little virtual people running around the decks, things like that. With a
woman talking over the animations with an explanation of each show. Then they
left us alone and we debated which one's we'd watch if they were on the air. I
tell you I was pretty disappointed for the most part, that they have had like a
year to think up a new series and this is all they came up with. I was pretty sad
that there wasn't a movie-era concept.
The first one was, from what I could gather from the ships and story outline,
pretty much a Deep Space Nine spinoff. Nothing new. Which takes place at the
same time period and everything.(Oh God I see many a pointless crossover) I
wasn't suprised when discussion time came around and about five of the eleven
people there loved this one. The animations were balls-to-the-walls
KICKASS, no doubt. Again, very Deep Space Nine-ish. They had
God-knows-how-many battle sequences with ships gratiutously blowing up
even when they didn't appear to be hit, looking alot like the ones we saw in the
opening battle of Star Trek: First Contact, with finally a greek letter flying
towards the screen that I'm pretty sure was the symbol for Omega. Is that the
name of the series? Got me. Anyway, the ships were very militaristic, not typical
"one saucer, two nacelles" design of ship that we are used to. About the size of
the defiant, but different configurations, much sleeker like they were made out
of metal. There was also a sequence of CG characters storming some new alien
ship with what looked like "breaching pods" (which is stupid when they could've
just beamed over.) All in all, this was the worst of the options presented in my
opinion. Absolutely no story, but plenty of cloak and dagger, spy and shoot. I
was probably the only one that really hated it. Every one else had dumb
comments, envoking Star Wars to say something like "this is what space shows
are supposed to be." Yeah right. Sometimes what looks great in a five minute
clip won't cut it in a seven year run.
Conclusion: All style and no substance. It would kickass for a couple of
seasons and then fail to develop. You don't care if the characters get captured
or die because they're strangers to you.
Next, shock of shocks, Starfleet Academy appeared on the monitor. The
CG was less inspiring than the first, consisting of some kind of 24th century
"aircraft carrier", a huge tub ship with a long hull about the shape of Voyager's.
The openning scene showed these long bays along the side openning up and
these almost boomerang shaped fighters flying out one by one. The uniforms on
the CG characters looked like what we saw in the episode "valiant" I kinda was
receptive to it, then they started explaining what the show would be like. A total
barrage of cliches. The old scolding captain trying to keep in line the wild top
gun cadets. It just got worse from there. The lady who was standing with her
clipboard by the screen said it would focus on their adolescent problems, they
might have trouble at school, one of the guys might fall for one of the girl
characters who likes someone else. I wanted to gag. However, I'm wondering if
maybe the guy who first reported was in an earlier focus group, because as far
as I can recall no one called it a "90210 in space." That's actually a perfect way
to put it, but no one said it then. It's an intriguing premise, I mean I remember
reading Heinlein's original Starship Troopers...but the wrong direction to take it.
Conclusion: Space: Above and Beyond resurrected, and this time worse!
Finally, the last one, the 22nd century one I'd have to say was the one that
sat with me the best. Unlike the other two it had VERY little CGI, and no
video, just screen shots. The ships kinda looked like a cross between The Old
Series and 2001: A Space Odyssey, having kindof a rugged gracefulness to the
ships(They kept the "orange necelle lights from TOS unfortunately :-) However,
just a correction: The series as it was explained to us would take place VERY
far pre-TOS and would even be pre-federation. It would focus on a ship, the
USS Enterprise(Interesting to note, the room erupted when they mentioned that
note :-) from an earth space probe administration or something, and would
focus on the exploits that led up to the establishment of the Federation, and the
havoc that occured after the disasterous first contact with the Klingons. A "the
people who were behind it all that you never knew of" story pretty much. It
looked to have taken a little of the feel from the original series, but leaving all the
60's decor out, and leaving in an Apollo 13 kinda motif. I'd have to say without
a doubt in the end this was my fav, as from my years watching The Next
generation, this seemed the only one to capture that spirit.
Conclusion: God I hope this is the one! Hope this interests you, Here's more
of the same, so call me Thomas Paine
Repeat after me: "fannish bullshit"
Repeat after me: "Harry Knowles has fat on the brain for posting this crap"
I find it curious that Sternbach et al have designed all-new starships, done several minute-long CGI sequences w/them in combat, and produced them when a series is still at least a year off and without a set concept, yet. Indeed, I find it curious that Paramount is splashing that kind of money around on mere untested concepts when the general consensus is that Star Trek isn't pulling its weight the same way it used to. I also find it curious that this fan report was able to give more detail on the ships than on the actual series concepts themselves. This so-called session was apparently about showing off concepts right, and not ship designs?
Anyway, a word to the wise. There are idiots out there. The only people more idiotic than them are the people who post this stuff. Keep a salt shaker handy and an eyebrow cocked.
------------------
The above post was mulled-over, composed, and posted during time Tom would have better spent on his plethora of homework and homework-related exercises. Now don't you feel special?
Printer-friendly view of this topic
