Do fans want the prime timeline back? Part 2: Poll edition.

Sadly, at the end of the day, only one thing matters to TPTB: dollar signs. Money. They didn't built this franchise so they could user in a new era for humanity, they built it so they could retire to a tropical island filled with naked women. You think they want to go to the stars? They don't even like to fly! They take trains!

:P

 

Well, the idea of a spaceship crew having adventures is pretty much evergreen. The problem is more this:

Really, this is what weighs the Trek brand down at this point: forty-six years of accumulated stylistic habits and assumptions inherited from the show, dressed up in slightly-different costumes and trotted out in series after series. Frankly, I don't even know that exploring different formats while weighed down by all those habits would solve the problem: if the idea was a weekly hospital drama set in the Trekverse, or a daily soap set in the Trekverse, or a garbage scow set in the Trekverse, it would still be facing that same problem of baggage.

I really do still think there are legs in the under-explored and long over-Kirkified Original Series milieu -- something like this is at least reasonably forthright about trading on nostalgia, and I love Peter Markowski's visual ideas for a new animated series because they involve bringing some visual freshness to that setting -- but in the live-action format?

Maybe what needs to happen isn't (he whispers) another Trek series at all. Maybe what needs to happen is learning from what Gene did well, and building something genuinely new. Trek has had its impact on science, culture, space-flight, more than one ever could have expected from a show that began so humbly. So much has happened in technology, culture, history since that could influence a very different kind of path in SF.

 

Two issues that I can see with a 100+ year post TNG series:

1) By the time we got to Nemeis TNG era tech was already near unbelievable. Jump a century ahead and you'd have tech would baffle the suspension of disbelief.

2) Related to "1": cost. You'd have to justify the Federation's tech being stagnant for a century, unless you wanted to pump a lot of money into greenscreen effects for sets and every day activities.

 

And let's not forget all the Technical advancements Janeway brought back with Voyager, which would have 70+/- years of further advancement on, if you go 100 years from Nemesis

 

What do you have in mind when you say they need greenscreen effects to depict sets and activities of the 25th century?

 

True, after Voyager and Nemesis wrapped up, trek tech was getting near unbelievable but that was the original point, with the whole warp thing. 100 years after Nemesis they could be exploring other galaxies from artificially made wormholes. With current made for TV graphics, we'll see a fancy ship do fancier things than previous shows and it will be even more unrestricted than the reboot. I can go on about it, but the thread for a 25th century series covers it. It wouldn't cost much more than TNG to do a show like that though. Fundamentally, it would be the same as the other series. The ship and the other ships, worlds, stations, and outposts visited.

One thing I liked about TNG was the "real" science they threw in their from time to time. With all the discoveries found and still being found post TV trek, I would like to see a "Through The Wormhole" level of intellect show. Doing something like that on a show in NuTrek's timeline would step on the toes of TNG and it's successors, and don't tell me they figured everything out because a Romulan came back in time.

And just for recognition, I caught that Frontier.

 

Look at Abramstrek. Extremely fast warp speeds, unlimited beaming distances, etc... could very well be in the 25th century. All tech is used by the needs of plot. And nobody cares.

 

Well, except that many people -- and not just diehard Trekkoids -- think Abramstrek is garbage.

 

A legitimate point, about all that technology!

But you can always find some limitation. Your starship doesn't visit a planet hundreds of lightyears from home, but at the edge of the galaxy itself. You're confronted with rivals with an equal technology to your own. New diseases rise to take the place of old ones. Turns out slipstream is even less stable than anyone thought. Yeah, you can transport between planets but the conditions have to be perfect. The phasing cloak turns out to offer no real defense against anyone who figures out the polarity of the phasing field and simply adjusts their weapons accordingly. If all else fails, have Starfleet start putting some real teeth behind enforcement of the Prime Directive--anyone caught violating it gets a one-way ticket to a mind-wiping facility, then rehabilitation in some frontier colony. That creates some real tension.

 

A new show doesn't need any of that babble. Warp speeds have never been consistent, transporters have never worked consistently, phasers and other weapons never had consistent powers, etc...

A new show doesn't have to match the previous shows, especially not the technobabble. Important is that it there is continuity within the show itself.

 

I really wish people would actually post proof instead of just making drive-by statements that have no basis in fact...



91% of 244,000 plus people "Liked" the film and gave it an average rating of 4.3/5. I'd say that this is a far more statistically significant sample than a poll of a hundred people in Vegas conducted by someone with an axe to grind.

 

More like a very vocal minority!

 

Yes, Bill, we are aware that fans of the movie vote for it on websites and that you are one of these fans. Thank you for the reminder.

However, much as I love Rotten Tomatoes as a casual movie reviewing tool, I do not regard it as "proof" of anything and regard as suspect the judgment of someone who does. There's relatively little to be said about the future trajectory of a movie from the reviews and ratings published by audience or critics in the immediate wake of a movie's hype campaign. What's more telling is whether the movie has the innate strengths needed to maintain that reputation, and it is usually possible to tell this based on whether it's actually well crafted or not.

When it is not, the initial hype recedes and so does the movie's relevance. Hence the phenomenon of "forgotbusters". Godzilla, Congo, Rising Sun and Disclosure were all high-grossing and over-praised blockbusters of yore that almost nobody remembers today. (FWICT you can pretty much predict whether a movie you are currently defending will wind up on that particular slush-pile if all your defenses of it wind up having to boil down to "who cares about believability" and "just turn off your brain and have fun.")

 

(And I am not trying to divert the thread, incidentally. I'm simply pointing out that the Abramsverse films are a very sketchy model to be using in regards to whether one "needs" to care about the finer details and consistencies. The bulk of Trek films that made a habit of ignoring the details -- which is pretty much the entire film franchise from STIII onward -- are deservedly forgotten now by anyone but Trekkies. I fully expect the same to happen to STID at the very least.)

 

Please quit tap-dancing and post proof of you statement.

Avatar made a billion-plus dollars and I've seen it exactly once. Most movies are quickly forgotten except for a few die-hard fans.

 

Please knock off the cheap rhetorical game-playing and pay attention to what I just said. I've explained myself fairly clearly.

 

You mean: "I wanted to make a drive-by statement about the Abrams films and not be challenged on it".

 

You made the statement:

I'm asking you to post statistical proof or to retract the statement. Or were you simply making it up?

 

I have no problem with intelligent challenges and intellectually honest, non-hostile engagement, Bill.

 

I'm just asking for honest proof of your statement:

I'd say nine out of ten people liking a movie is the exact opposite of what you're saying.