However, thanks to bespectacled geek filmmaker J. J. Abrams and his motley crew, a new hope for Star Trek‘s future has emerged, which generally comes in Hollywood after making a lot of money, which the film has managed to do. Who could have guessed that in a year where heavyweights such as the Transformers, Harry Potter, Wolverine, Terminator, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop, what was once perceived to be the nerdiest franchise in the world would not only hold its own, but eclipse some of them? Not even Derren Brown and his splitscreen of doom could have predicted that. One thing about this new era of the franchise is that everything has been thrown open by that oft-used sci-fi phrase ‘parallel universe’. Once Spock and his jellyfish decided using red matter was a good thing, and the Narada decided the Kelvin should be blasted into oblivion, the universe as we know it was irrevocably changed, with the two timelines now running parallel, one featuring Shatner, the other featuring Chris Pine, which opens up all kinds of opportunities for new takes on classic events. Let’s hope one of the first things Nimoy does is tell Starfleet never to let Kathryn Janeway anywhere near a starship. Khan But where fans look to Khan, it’s almost certain that most of them are thinking about vengeful and eel-wielding Khan, as opposed to charismatic yet overly confident Khan, from Space Seed. But for that to really come off, they’d have to redo Space Seed, then wait a while before bringing him back, as one of the beautiful things about Wrath Of Khan is that both protagonist and antagonist had aged appropriately for the story. So by my reckoning, we’d see Melville-quoting Khan right about 2024. The Space Seed idea is somewhat interesting – although I think it would need reworking as the nature of the episode means it almost completely takes place aboard the Enterprise, which isn’t necessarily cinematic – but mostly because of the possibilities about not only who could play Khan, but who could possibly match Montalban’s inspired ravings. Send your answer, along with a stamp-addressed envelope, to… Long before a certain white-haired scientist decided eighty-eight miles per hour is the optimum speed for time travel, the starship Enterprise was bouncing all over the space time continuum like nobody’s business and, indeed, Star Trek 2.0 is all about time travel itself. Time travel is great because it opens up a shedload of new possibilities for drama, but is also kind of a cliché in Star Trek now. Time travel was once this shiny new ‘ooh’ thing, but after thirty years, a bit of the sheen has been taken off, which was bound to happen once you let Voyager and the NX-01 get involved (sorry, Enterprise fans). Nevertheless, there must be some great ideas somewhere that involve travelling to the past (or future) to help save the present. Sorry, parallel-present. Writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman have said that they were looking to work in some political themes for the sequel, so maybe we could have Kirk et al head back to England circa 2007 and stop Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister. That one might have a slightly limited appeal, but it’d certainly guarantee a five-star review from The Daily Mail. One plotline that would definitely get the crowds rolling in would be to send the crew to California circa 1997 to stop a certain bearded filmmaker from messing with his magnum opus. Or at least stop Alexandra Burke murdering Cohen/Buckley’s Hallelujah on The X-Factor. But seriously, where could they go? They could go to the future and meet any number of people from the future franchises, including, perhaps, the Borg. I have to admit it would be nice to see someone try and give the Borg back their teeth, especially after their overuse made them seem a bit, well, cuddly. Not to mention having two shades of shit kicked out of them by Species 7627290, which didn’t really do a lot for their street cred. Ah, the Klingons. Again, once the most fearsome race in the galaxy, now a bit teddy bear-esque after our love affair with Worf and the entire empire helping out the Federation against the Dominion, which was admittedly quite awesome. The whole honour and death thing though, it’s a bit cute now, isn’t it? Like ‘Aww, they’re drinking bloodwine to honour their fallen comrades who did a kamikaze run on a Jem’Hadar battlecruiser. How adorable!’ The only real glimpses of parallel-Klingons we’ve seen thus far were the Warbirds in the Kobayashi Maru sequence, and the interrogators from a deleted scene on the DVD, who were all wearing steel masks and as such looked a bit like the Predator. The Alien Object One of the main themes of Star Trek, which has occasionally been forgotten over the years, is that of exploration. The Enterprise as originally conceived was a vessel for scientific discovery, as denoted in the “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilisations” in the opening log. As opposed to running around blowing everything up. One of the downsides to this kind of story is its lack of commercial appeal. While Abrams will, no doubt, have carte blanche to do what he wants with the sequel, it still has to bring the bucks home, and the main issue with these kind of plots is that there’s no real villain, and with that a lack of your typical action and space battles which the public are expecting to see. Nevertheless, it’s something I’d personally love to see explored, a possible combination of the philosophical and theoretical ramblings from The Motion Picture with Abram’s pace and wit. Shatner Personally, I’d have much rather Chris Pine read it than Shatner or Nimoy, but that’s logically the only part that I think would have worked with him in, especially since in normal Trek canon, his Kirk is, well, dead, although that word certainly doesn’t have the finality in Star Trek that it does in real life. Shatner’s fiction seems to be obsessed with bringing Kirk back, and he did so in several novels with the aid of the Borg. However, with this new timeline, you still have to assume that he’ll grow up to be Shatner, so there’s a future-Kirk somewhere if they need to get him in there. I think they should leave it, though. Let’s see what the new crew can do without having to rely on more cameos from established characters. If you’re to take the Internet and fan-fiction into account, if there’s one thing people love more than graphic pornography and photoshopping cats into humorous situations, it’s universe crossovers. From Buffy vs. The Evil Dead to Star Trek vs. Star Wars vs. Babylon 5 vs. Stargate vs. Battlestar Galactica vs. Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, there’s literally millions of pages out there solely dedicated to seeing popular and not-so-popular franchises meet. You could have the Enterprise fight the Millennium Falcon, Spock getting jealous as Uhura is whisked away in a whirlwind romance by Robert Pattinson, or even have it turn out that Iron Man’s technology was really created by Mr. Scott. Which would, in turn, mean there’d have to be an awkward cameo by Stan Lee somewhere, but it’s not as if these universes have never met before, assuming I’m not the only person who ever read Star Trek / X-Men. But to be honest, there’s only really one option, and that’s to bring Paramount’s two longest-standing franchises together for a titanic battle. But would the intrepid heroes of the Federation ever really be any match for the force of nature that is Jason Voorhees? For their sake, let’s hope Starfleet never builds an outpost at Camp Crystal Lake. Harry Mudd Leave your own thoughts in the comments below…!
