Absolutely. Everyone has the freedom to watch, or not watch, what they want.
Instead of trying to reinvent Trek every few years, I really wish CBS/Paramount would sponsor fan produced projects like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkuJG1_2MnU
Here's a data point :
http://www.looper.com/89064/star-tre...ts-cbs-access/
Star Trek: Discovery nearly doubles profits for CBS All Access....nearly doubled the mobile subscription revenue coming in for CBS' fledgling All Access service, singlehandedly bringing in more revenue than the rest of the service's programming combined.
If the Studio would give a "Fan" guy like Vic Mignogna from Star Trek Continues....or even a guy with the drive and desire of Alec Peters from the Axanar project the budget to create a true "Roddenberry" inspired Star Trek prequel, created with canonical Star Trek in mind. I think the real fans would truly Love it..... but others would never "Get" it. You'd be aimed at too small a fan base for the return on investment for the Studio. Star Trek made people think. The Thought is what inspired the "Hope" for a better future for mankind. Kids today don't want to think. They don't want a moralistic story. They want "Bang-Bang Shoot 'em up" Fast and furious blow everything up Super Hero kind of stories like the Abrams movies were. There are two completely different fan bases since the movies and CBS / Paramount can't please them both!! Discovery's kiss is death is being on CBS' own steaming service and not a mainstream service like Netflix. That right there is only further dividing the fan base. Star Trek is supposed to be episodic TV. It is Perfect for the Netflix episodic environment. Who doesn't enjoy "Binge" watching episodic Star Trek??
Hello again FOO FIGHTER,
Perhaps you are forgetting that TOS also had a political message. It was a rationalization for the Global political climate at the time with the US and Soviet / Chinese each supporting opposing sides in regional conflicts like Korea and Vietnam without getting into a full scale war with each other.
Besides being a somewhat silly movie, what else did you find "wrong" with TWOK?
- Ivan.
Another data point of the success of the show thus far...
https://trekmovie.com/2017/10/03/fir...access-record/
Thanks Ivan. I'm glad someone finally recognized what my avatar represented!
TOS was not intended to be a vehicle for political or social commentary. Being created during a rough part in our history (Vietnam war, racial tension, cold war, etc.) it did touch on the problems at that time. Only a handful of episodes out of 79 went full bore into making some social statement. It represented what mankind could become once we got past things like war and racism. It did not zero in on left or right being good or bad but that we as humanity were all in the same boat together rowing in unison.
STD is created by politically charged people (both in front of and behind the camera) pushing their political point of view. Case in point:
http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/25/star-tre...ua-takes-knee/
I don't give a damn what these people think politically and I don't want to see it wrapped around Star Trek. I want to see some part of Star Fleet exploring space and discovering new things without left or right politics attached to it. But Hollywood being what it is in recent years that is going to be damn near impossible.
I thought TWOK was OK, but that is when they started messing with established canon. In 'Space Seed' Khan and his crew are all about the same age, but in the movie the rest of his crew are many years younger than he is. In the movie, Khan recognizes Chekov but Chekov was not in 'Space Seed'. In the TOS the Enterprise sensors could pick up lifeforms on a planet but the Reliant apparently can't detect a cluster of humans on the desolate and lifeless surface of Ceti Alpha V. Oh god, my nerdness is showing!
@MustangL2W - Star Trek Continues has gotten way too political as well (you can't really escape it, it is everywhere). I will say that it is well produced and that Vic Mignogna has NAILED Shatner's body language and mannerisms to a tee. For those interested in more TOS fan productions, look up Starship Farragut or Starship Exeter on YooToob.
Trek no longer has the so called 'built in fan base' that Paramount has relied on in the past. Nobody waits in line for hours or days to see a Trek movie anymore the way Star Wars fans still do. There is a reason for that and it is because the fans aren't there any more. Trek ceased to be Trek with ST:III and has become just another series of sci-fi movies.
People are tuning into STD now because it is new. They want to see what it is all about and I think the novelty of it all will fade pretty quick once they do.
I hate to say it, but the JJ Abrams films have done better than the other previous films..and that's 3 thus far....
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/fr...ek#tab=summary
But the catch is that people were drawn to the new, which was Star Trek 2009. Each film since then, however, has done successively worse at the box office, with the latest one considered to be a financial failure that's put the prospects for any more Kelvin timeline films in doubt.
In fact, when adjusted for inflation, the latest movie in the kelvin timeline series comes in as pretty middle of the road. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchi...d=startrek.htm
Hi
Addendum: I should also add that the Battlestar Galactica re-boot went through the same thing. There were some hard core fans still stuck in 1978 and had absolutely zero interest in and hated the reboot - regardless of the reboot's success.
LOL, it's easy. If you don't like it don't watch it. Those of us who like it will be in front of the set on Sunday night.
I remember when TOS came out. If I went straight home from high school, I could be in front of the TV at 4pm local, when the show came on. I did NOTHING ELSE, right after school that year. At 5 pm, you could talk to me.
Sue
(Warning: Spoilers)
I actually liked the Battlestar reboot at first. Then I realized it was a universe where nobody smiled, ever, and the whole thing got too heavy.
Essentially, the show became a major downer, and hot cylons notwithstanding, I drifted off and never went back.
Nice battles, though.
I would say that "Hardcore fans stuck in 1978" as a correlation to the Star Trek situation though, is a pretty broad brush, really only useful for dismissing contrary opinions.
For many people, the writing, particularly of the main character, but on many other levels as well, was simply silly, culminating in the ship's Captain and First officer going alone into a ship full of enemies, because apparently security was having a coffee break.
Let's look at the situation in a realistic context. The ship is disabled, many crew dead and missing, the fleet is in tatters...... So amidst all this, the captain and first officer of a US warship abandon the crew to go attack a guerrilla base and capture Osama bin laden... alone.
Okee Dokee. Make sense? Even Kirk knew enough to take security with him.
The main character is supposed to have been raised on Vulcan and be super-logical...... But behaves like an unstable personality with zero impulse control. She commits mutiny, (technically barratry) attacks a senior officer..... and we're supposed to bond with her as a person when she essentially screws up just about everything from the moment we first meet her.....
The one likable character, the captain, is a throwaway; apparently there just to add texture to the main character, and in fact the entire crew of the first vessel we meet (as well as the vessel itself) are essentially throwaways in support of the main character's backstory.
Seeing her captain killed, the main character (Again completely based on emotion rather than her supposed Vulcan upbringing) does the exact thing she warned that they must at all costs avoid doing and switches her phaser from blue to red (kill) before blowing away the big baddie, making him a martyr and destroying the last known hope for a negotiated settlement)
Screw the crew and the Federation, my captain is dead and i'm pissed.
It goes on and on.
Honestly, one doesn't have to be stuck in the past to not like a badly told story.....
The consensus I'm finding out there is that a lot of people believe we could have done without the first two episodes except as flashbacks, and the show should have started with episode three as a better introduction.
Hi
Hello FOO FIGHTER,
Regarding Avatar, I used to hang out a lot at The Trenches, but it got to the point where I realised that I was really a customizer and kit-basher and not a rabid collector as are most of the folks there. Haven't been there in a while especially after all the images stored there went away.
I personally believe there are a lot more than just a handful of TOS episodes with political or social commentary.
I had always figured that Khan's crew in TWOK were the descendants of his original crew with some license (perhaps the ever present villain of radiation?) to allow for a not quite accurate match up for aging.
Another case of a slightly mismatched timeline was for Commander Sela in TNG. Her chronological age would have been about 21-22 which would have made her awfully young for her rank and that is working on the assumption that she was conceived at the point of the shift in timeline.
I never caught the error with Khan recognizing Chekov. (Perhaps Chekov was onboard Enterprise but just not part of the bridge crew at the time?)
Not being able to pick up a cluster of humans might have something to do with the planetary / atmospheric conditions?
STD: What an unfortunate acronym.
We shall see whether it has the quality to endure or whether it is just entertainment and eye candy for the moment.
- Ivan.
Hey Ivan! I'm not much of a collector either but used to do a lot of customization. I was going to do an online comic once upon a time but life didn't allow for that. Still have all of the vehicles, figures and equipment, so maybe one of these days.
Fans/viewers shouldn't have to develop a backstory on their own to justify what they are seeing on the screen, in terms of continuity. This is one of the reasons why I kinda got turned off with the 'make a quick buck' Trek movies in the 80's & 90's. For me, Star Trek died with the TWOK. Everything that came after (including NG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) were just sci-fi shows pretending to be Star Trek.
Another factor was that CBS/Paramount seemed to absolutely loath Trek fans and would relentlessly shoot themselves in the foot by killing any fan involvement with a vengeance out of fear that they weren't getting their cut. Compare that to George Lucas embracing Star Wars fans and more or less allowing them to participate so long as they didn't become millionaires off of the brand.
And that's what it all boils down to. If you like it, watch it. If you don't, change the channel.
Back in the beginning Gene made an attempt to obey the laws of physics where he could and still have a space story. One of the instructions he gave his people who were working on a starship design was "I don't want to see any fire shooting out of it, that would never get us into space faster than light, think of something else". So here we are with Abrams and Discovery with the ship on the ground and dipping down near the ground with rockets shooting out of the bottom of the saucer section. The entire saucer section would have to be a giant fuel tank and even then those little rockets could never lift it. What was the point? Gene said it was built in orbit and never lands which makes sense considering its design. They brought the ship down because they could. A first year physics student to help out can't be that expensive!
Hmmmm.....Let's see...Voyager landed several times during that series. Enterprise, in the newer movie version was seen firing thrusters to keep it form smashing into the Earth. And fer crying up a stump.. it was seen submerged in an ocean with a big fish at the window scaring the bejeezers outta Scotty!
Charlie Awaiting the new Microsoft Flight Sim and will eventually buy a new computer. Running a Chromebook for now!
I was reading a novel recently where spacecraft used "countermass" essentially a way to "hide the mass of an object from the universe" so that it became effectively whatever mass/weight was assigned to it.
I've always thought that StarTrek gravity tech had similar practical application, so that for instance, something like Discovery could be given a low effective mass that allowed something like regular action/reaction engines to maneuver it effectively........
Hi
More good news for Discovery fans!
http://www.slashfilm.com/star-trek-discovery-season-1/
In my mind, this review nails it perfectly!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBb0hyuIfYQ
Matt
Hello Aeronca1,
Now THAT was a pretty harsh review. Probably accurate, but harsh.
I guess with all this back and forth, I probably should find and watch at least the first two episodes.
The thing that struck me about this review is that it appears that the Captain and her Exec do not get along.
That sounds like a serious recipe for disaster, especially if it becomes necessary to throw the Executive Officer into the brig.
At that point, she becomes a liability and not an asset and one never needs someone like that as your deputy and certainly not while getting shot at.
- Ivan.
Ivan, that review was mild compared to this one, a review that pretty much puts the nails in the coffin for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF3C...t=2372.3023501
Bill Leaming
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