Why Can't the Trek Franchise Simple Let A Major Character Stay Dead?

I know it started with Leonard Nimoy in The Wrath of Khan insisting that his character be killed off and then deciding he was willing to come back as Spock if they would let him direct.

But beyond that, why can't the Trek franchise allow a main character to die and stay dead?

IIRC, both Sisko and Data have been revived in Trek books post DS9 and post Nemesis.

and lets not even get into Kirks revival after Generations in the novels.

Why?

I'm not sure about Trip in Enterprise but it wouldn't surprise me. Though no one seems to care much.

Because the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.

It is logical.

It is not linear.

Three replies. No decent answers.

Not sure who said it first, but everyone from Harve Bennett to James Cameron has been quoted as saying "Nobody dies in science fiction."

If you kill off a major character, you risk losing the segment of the audience that only watches it for that character. For Spock, at least, that would have been a huge segment.

What I found interesting was the gender divide. Women fans got really upset about Spock's death (even though the revised ending of TWOK pretty much spelled out that it wasn't permanent), but when Enterprise exploded in TSFS, the menfolk were practically inconsolable.

This is a good answer for Sisko's case. He didn't die, he just became a prophet and he said himself he could come back in a year, or ten years. He was no longer linear, but he wasn't dead. I always figured he'd come back.

Are you kiddin?

They had him back to life in the novels the year after the ENT finale.

Turns out, he didn't even die, and the holodeck program was a lie.

Then, the truth was finally declassified.

I have trouble believing a significant segment of the audience was watching Enterprise due to the character of Trip.

Of course, I have trouble believing a significant audience was watching Enterprise anyway.

Are you talking about the "Remember" scene? Or the the very last scene with the torpedo pod on the planet? And what do you mean by "revised"? Curious minds are curious...

"revised" meaning that neither scene was in the original script.

In fact, IIRC, it was said that originally Spock died in the initial attack by the Reliant much earlier in the movie.

Honestly, in Trek, in doesn't make sense for any character to die. SOP for the Enterprise should be to store the patterns for every crew member. Somebody gets killed by an oil slick, no problem, you just take their most recent pattern and beam them back.

If you want to argue that there's too much data that has to be stored, for them to keep a person's pattern for very long, no biggie, either. You just have their back up stored at a place like Starfleet HQ. Mind you, this does not screw up things like character development or having to deal with "big issues," like the death of a friend.

For example, let's say Red Shirt Dead Meat beams down to a planet with an away team, while on this mission he does something stupid, like walk on sacred grass or something and gets executed by the locals for it. Back on board the ship, they create a new Red Shirt Dead Meat, using the transporter, and deny him a promotion because of it. This can cause him to be extremely bitter, because he thinks he really didn't do anything wrong.

Or, maybe Red Shirt Dead Meat is killed on a mission because his captain wants revenge against a blood sucking cloud of gas. Say this isn't the first time that particular red shirt has been killed by what he deems a stupid decision on the part of the captain, and he's getting tired of being killed and losing all his memories of what happened during the missions where he winds up dead.

Spock dying to save the Enterprise was painful to Kirk, but he was able to take comfort, knowing that Spock died for a noble cause. Had Spock stayed dead, Kirk still could have been content with that. What if, however, a revived Spock decided that the reason he was killed was because Kirk had made some extremely poor decisions, which rendered Kirk unfit for command? Suppose Kirk manages to win against those charges, how is that going to make him feel about Spock? What if Spock agrees to remain subordinate to Kirk because Spock is certain that Kirk will screw up again, and Spock wants to be there to prevent it, or see to it that Kirk is finally removed from command? That's going to cause some real friction, with the added bonus that there's no worries about Kirk going around like some whiny teenager wondering if there was anything he could have done to prevent Spock's death.

The possibilities are endless.

Sisko never died. He joined the Prophets.

Tasha died and stayed dead. Jadzia died and stayed dead.

Sarek died and stayed dead. Gowron died and stayed dead. Kai Winn died and stayed dead. Damar died and stayed dead. They weren't in any of the main casts but I would argue they were 'major characters.'

And can Data really die, seeing as he is an android and all? They were able to attach a 200 year old head to his body after all.

Kirk was brought back in the Shatner novels... which aren't considered canon by anyone except William Shatner. Canonically, Kirk's corpse is still rotting on Veridian III.

Your premise is flawed.

Dax

Kes

Yar

Data

Trip

Dukat

Damar

Winn

The last of the weyouns

Wtf are u talking about Dayton?

Because the needs of the box office outweighed the needs of plausibility.

Within a year of Nemesis. I was pissed cause I was working on that same idea. My shitty book was gonna be EPIC. And then some stupid, experience writer went ahead and published.

... who am I kidding, I was 12.

Just happened last month. First part of the Cold Equations TNG Trilogy.

Roberto Orci had him back to life, and Captain of Enterprise-E in the Countdown comics 4 years ago.

Yeah, but those were a one-shot deal. This is part of the continuing novel continuity.

If TrekBBS opinion was anything to go by, Trip was the one character that got the most development. The others were too far in the background or too despised or too unevenly written to catch with many folks.

The biggest irony is that many of the forum's most rabid Trip fans had initially tuned into Enterprise because of Scott Bakula, but ended up loathing his character to the point of wishing he'd get killed off and have Trip in charge.

it's better to revive them in the most implausible ways than have them die in a stupid, totally out-of-character way like trip.

Why? Shit happens. Makes it a bit more like "real life".

Stopped caring right there.

Tasha Yard died FOR GOOD! Even her alternate timeline/parallel universe counterpart from "Yesterday's Enterprise". Then her irritating useless half-breed daugher character showed up & polluted TNG.

And JADZIA died FOR GOOD too! Only to be replaced by spam.

Of those who were, in fact, watching, yes - indeed there were. You had four major segments, in my estimation (among those who were characterdriven):

1. Those who were long time Backula fans
2. Those who were lusting over Blalock and had no idea there was an actual TV show going on
3. Those who though Trip was the most interesting and likeable character on the show (a view i agree with, by the way)
4. and a smattering of folks who thought that John Billngsely was a very good actor worth watching no matter the context.

I certainly didn't watch it only for Trip, but he was by far the most likeable character on the show (among the main crew, not counting Shran)

the "soft landing" was tagged on after test audiences had seen it, I think. Garamet to confirm or deny?

Yup.

And, as I heard it, Nick Meyer pitched a fit. Wanted Spock to stay dead, but he was overruled.

Because writers like the formula, and the status quo.