A TOS resurgence?

There are people on this forum who became Star Trek fans because of the new movies. I realize how much you abhor the thought of it, but of course the new movies revived interest in TOS.

And as for saving the franchise, there is a big budget movie based on TOS coming in 2016. Without the reboot, there would not have been. Again, it may not be relevant to your tastes, but it's a continuation of the franchise which would not be otherwise.

 

^^ I've already acknowledged my tastes are irrelevant in regards to the added attention JJtrek brought to TOS. What else do you want? An apology? I think the films are shit, but that's irrelevant to their effect. So I have nothing to apologize for.

What I steadfastly dispute is JJtrek saved the franchise. That is patent bullshit because lots of Trek tie-ins were still being produced and sold and most particularly TOS stuff. That means there already existed a healthy interest in Trek before JJ came along.

 

I guess we're defining "healthy" very differently. Firefly has merchandise and comics, yet with no Serenity sequel on the horizon I wouldn't say there is a healthy franchise there. The interest won't last.

 

Sherlock Holmes has a movie maybe once every 20 years. It seems to be doing ok nevertheless...

 

There's been two major American motion pictures, an American TV series and a British TV series all made in the last five-six years.

 

Ok, well I guess I counted the sequel together with the original Robert Downey junior film. Don't really keep up with television that much in the last decade, so thanks.

Nevertheless, before the RDJ film, Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985...then the 7-percent solution in 1976? The Christopher Lee film in 1970... Before that not much of anything since the 40s.

 

Here in the UK, a 9 season TV version was produced from 1984 starring Jeremy Brett. Many critics hail his performance as Holmes as one of the finest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(1984_TV_series)

 

TOS is my Trek. I was born in the same year that it went on the air, watched every episode a million times in syndication when I was a kid, built the AMT models, had a Mego Spock and copies of TMOST, Asherman's Compendium and Gerrold's Tribbles book, saw all of the movies when they were in theaters (saw TWOK four times that summer!).

Has there been a resurgence? Well, in my case, I credit three things for renewing my interest as of late: The remastered episodes being available on Netflix, joining TrekBBS, and the JJ films, which I have to credit with bringing the old characters to a new audience that otherwise may not have cared.

 

It still never ceases to amaze me how many people on this board call themselves Star Trek fans and flat-out say they don't like/watch Star Trek.

 

Same here. I tend to watch the fan web shows (Phase II, Aurora) as well as Enterprise because they're new episodes, at least.

And as already said, the JJ movie made new fans who like Star Trek and want to see it on DVD/TV, with spin-off interest in TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, as well as Star Trek Online.

 

The Lone Ranger reboot would have worked if the studio was serious, and had cast a First Nations actor as the First Nations character. It wasn't serious, and it didn't do the second thing, so the movie failed.

The Smurfs movie obviously was a success, because there was a sequel; that said movies were a success despite critical disapproval means that they were popular (artistic) failures more than anything else.

 

I'd rather be a popular failure than a critical success any day of the week.

 

Really I think it was that they tried to build the whole thing around Yet Another Wacky Johnny Depp performance, and refused to treat the title character as the hero. I wish I could say unseriousness and racebending necessarily lead to failure, but the trajectories of some other reboots teach us this is not so.

 

As far as a TOS resurgence goes? Yes, I believe in it, because I'm part of it. Up until the last couple of years I was one of those casual Trek fans who mostly saw TOS as awesome-but-comical cheese that I must only have liked because I was a little kid when I first saw it. It was still first in my heart, in a way... but I couldn't really articulate why. It's only recent re-visiting that has brought me to really respect the show and what it accomplished in so many different ways.

 

And as KingDaniel said, those Trek tie-ins were being purchased by an infinitesimally tiny percentage of people, of which almost all were probably already Star Trek fans to begin with, and not people who had no idea what Star Trek was and decided to buy a comic book to find out.

Believe whatever the hell you want, but the truth is that the time between the cancellation of ENT to the production of Star Trek '09, Trek was deader than dirt and had been steadily declining in popularity ever since TNG went off the air. It was so bad that Paramount decided to auction off all their Trek props/costumes/models/etc. from the last 30+ years just to make some more cash off what was considered a dead franchise even to them.

 

And has JJtrek generated much beyond ticket sales? No. Also Trek wasn't something in the distant past to the point where hardly anyone knew what it was.

You might also dismiss the sales of new tie-in merchandise as insignificant, but it really isn't or the stuff wouldn't be made available in the first place. But they know there's a significant market for it.

Also note that sales of JJtrek merchandise is puny compared to TOS and other series product. Again beyond initial ticket sales few were running out to grab whatever tie-in stuff they could get their hands particularly to replace the "old" stuff. Good thing, too, because comparatively little JJtrek stuff has even been made.

TNG drew huge numbers of new fans to Trek even during its rough first season. It retained those new viewers and even introduced some of them to TOS through association. It was more than a momentary summer diversion. JJtrek is but just one of a number of spectacles of the moment before the next one. That hardly builds the franchise if most who see just drift away soon after.

So I stand by what I said. JJ saved jacked shit.

 

Yeah. DVD/BluRay sales. That, combined with the ticket sales, outweight piddly mechandise sales by quite a significant margin.

Whatever helps you to sleep at night.

 

Otherwise, no.

 

Toy sales are miniscule compared to ticket, home video and broadcast revenue.

I understand how you feel from an emotional standpoint. You dislike the Abrams films and don't want them to receive any credit for an increased interest in TOS. But the Abrams films have increased TOS profile among the general public. Even if I hated the films, it would be impossible for me not to see that. Even if I hated the Abrams films, I'd still be thankful for the increased exposure the films give TOS. Like it or not, eventually our little cadre of hard core fans who were around early in the life of the franchise will die out. Projects like the Abrams films will keep people checking out TOS after we depart this world.

For that, I am thankful.

 

Again, TOS is #1 in my book; BUT, considering that until JJ Abrams came along and proposed the new film series to Paramount; it was pretty clear that both Paramount and CBS would be content with just sitting on the produced works and getting what they could from re-releasing things on Blu-Ray.

had it not been for the JJ Abrams films, I doubt either Paramount or CBS would have been marketing, cross-promoting and actively trying to keep 'Star Trek' in the public eye as they have.

The fact is/was that 'Star Trek' in general (aside from us die hards) had pretty much disappeared from the public eye (and that includes TNG et. al too - but the JJ Films helped spark a re-interest in Star trek in general, and did cause a lot of 'new' people to go back and take a look at the original TOS episodes in particular.

So, yeah maybe 'saved' isn't accurate, unless you equate 'saved' within the desire to do a new production in the original 'Star trek' milieu - but no matter how you look at them, the JJ films DID raise public interest in 'Star Trek' in general again (and TOS in particular.) <--- And this in comparison of the last two TNG feature films (ST:Insurrection and ST:Nemesis) shows that there just being a new Star Trek feature didn't mean automatic renewed interest. It was the fact that the JJ films were BOTH entertaining as films, and based on the original Star Trek (circa 1966) concept that lead to renewed public interest; and renewed public interest in TOS in particular.