Star Trek: The Search for Plots

Five Series (a Sixth Animated Series); Ten Movies (soon to be Eleven); Numerous Novels, Comic Books, Video Games, and a bunch of Fan Fiction to boot.

Yes, this is a post about Star Trek.

When looking at the Star Trek Franchise from a writer's perspective, it seems rather daunting to attempt to pen new Star Trek stories. The people who wrote for it say, for the most part, that it's over because it is simply too vast a world to add to. It might even be logical to say that Star Trek should be allowed to end where it was instead of dragged on infinitely to the point of absurdity, but I am not Spock.

Star Trek stopped where it was at because the writers forgot a key idea of writing: One must both look to the future and to the past. In Star Trek, plenty of mistakes are there to be learned from, and there are numerous places to continue from. What some shows forget to do is address both what was behind while moving forward, some remaining in over used Star Trek plots and others going out to the edge of the galaxy and entering into mere science fiction.

Is creating a prequel a good idea? Going back to the roots of characters and explaining motivations seems entertaining enough, but it also appears to be an idea that has a limited life span. Much of the movie will probably be satiating a desire for in-references that only Trekkies like me will recognize. The movie (and any possible spin offs) also won't be able to move far enough away from the original series, which could loom over the film like a bad ion cloud. Something like Star Trek needs room to grow and breathe to truly show its value. What would the world be like if Star Trek was never made because they didn't like the first pilot?: probably a bit more cheerless.

I'm sure there are ideas for Star trek movies that don't rehash the original characters. I could think of a few right now...

Other Star Trek Series Movie - There were three other shows that could each be thrown into film in some way, continuing a set of stories within the universe that aren't entirely limited by what has come before. Let Deep Space Nine be the set of some deep-space political-intrigue, or show one last voyage for Voyager. Heck, Enterprise might even be able to have an actual ending instead of the crap they showed as a series finale.

Klingon Centric Movie - Everybody loves Klingons, and they have been fleshed out enough that the people, once consisting entirely of stock warrior characters, could be given some real dramatic trappings.

All New Cast, Ship, Aliens Etc. Movie - There are always newcomers willing to act in anything, advances in special effects to be used for grander explosions, and moral issues to be addressed under a thin vale of fiction. Combine these three aspects and you have some pretty bad science fiction, but great Star Trek (which is in no way an affront to Star Trek; things that work for Star Trek are lame in science fiction and things cool in science fiction are often bad ideas for Star Trek).

In the spirit of Star Trek, there is Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, meaning Star Trek will always have places to go that make sense within the confines of the Franchise. An important question to be asked is whether writers are brave enough to try their hands continuing a legacy.