Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot?

[Greg Cox]

Dale Sams wrote:

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Maybe, I'd have to go over the Finnegan dialouge in Shore Leave. That's the only one of the top of my head that might.

Hmm. That would be the right place to look . . .

[BillJ]

DalekJim wrote:

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1) Marketing. JJ-Trek was advertised everywhere whereas Nemesis came and went with only us noticing.

2) Over-saturation of Star Trek. Dunno about USA but here in Britain TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT were constantly on television. BBC2 was flooded with Trek and Sky One may as well have been renamed "The Star Trek Channel". The audience needed to miss Star Trek until they'd pay for it.

You don't pay to go see a hooker if you've got your sexy wife at home that'll screw ya for free. You only do it if you're single and there's nothing else available.

Your reasoning simply does not work... First Contact premiered while both DS9 and Voyager were on the air and TNG was in reruns here in the States and it had no issue selling tickets. It was a success because it took something that was popular in the mainstream, zombies, and put a Trek coat of paint on it.

It's like saying The Final Frontier failed because Next Gen was on the air, which is what Shatner said. The quote was something along the lines of "who looks forward to turkey when they're having turkey sandwiches everyday", which was horseshit then and is horseshit now.

Modern Trek simply couldn't sustain itself in the long run. It wasn't that it was terrible but it never changed.

[DalekJim]

A Very Jewel Christmas wrote:

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No one denies the success of TNG, but DS9, VOY and ENT didn't come close to it and are the reason it isn't on the air now. If they had all been successful, Star Trek would still be on television now.

VOY and DS9 have over double the amount of seasons that TOS has.

There's just no way anybody will be able to convince me that 25 seasons is the sign of failure. It's a bloody miracle in television for a sci-fi show to get this much. Look how long Firefly lasted! And I never see people saying that show got cancelled because it was crap either.

[Awesome Possum]

Kevin W. wrote:

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Lowest common denominator.

So what we need is androids swearing, bald action stars as well as ignoring everything he ever did, planet of the immortal hippies and mind rape?

That's some high brow material.

[Greg Cox]

Kevin W. wrote:

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Lowest common denominator.

Not to mention the fact that FIRST CONTACT is the only really first-rate NextGen movie . . . .

If you had to be marooned on a desert island with only one of the last five Trek movies, would anyone really choose Insurrection or Nemesis?

And remember, prior to the new movie, the most successful Trek movie was the one was the whales . . . which was funny and breezy and accessible to fans and non-fans like. Probably something to be learned there.

"Popular" is not a dirty word, especially where pop culture is concerned.

[DalekJim]

Greg Cox wrote:

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If you had to be marooned on a desert island with only one of the last five Trek movies, would anyone really choose Insurrection or Nemesis?

I'd pick Insurrection but I'd feel dirty about it. It's the only one that really resembles Star Trek.

[Awesome Possum]

DalekJim wrote:

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VOY and DS9 have over double the amount of seasons that TOS has.

There's just no way anybody will be able to convince me that 25 seasons is the sign of failure. It's a bloody miracle in television for a sci-fi show to get this much. Look how long Firefly lasted! And I never see people saying that show got cancelled because it was crap either.

DS9 ran in syndication where it could last that long and VOY ran on a network so crappy it made Homeboys in Outer Space. Both in a time when cable tv wasn't really a problem yet and in VOY's case the company that owned it also owned the channel.

Also despite running twice as long, neither had the impact the original did and both are largely unknown to non-Trek fans.

[Dale Sams]

Re: Bond and Trek, I think the reason they succeeded is much more so for being well done, than being a reboot.

[BillJ]

A Very Jewel Christmas wrote:

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DS9 ran in syndication where it could last that long and VOY ran on a network so crappy it made Homeboys in Outer Space. Both in a time when cable tv wasn't really a problem yet and in VOY's case the company that owned it also owned the channel.

Also despite running twice as long, neither had the impact the original did and both are largely unknown to non-Trek fans.

Hell, the only reason we got a fourth season of Enterprise was because Paramount wanted to have enough episodes to sell into syndication.

And every series after TNG suffered from sliding ratings.

[DalekJim]

A Very Jewel Christmas wrote:

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DS9 ran in syndication where it could last that long and VOY ran on a network so crappy it made Homeboys in Outer Space. Both in a time when cable tv wasn't really a problem yet and in VOY's case the company that owned it also owned the channel.

Also despite running twice as long, neither had the impact the original did and both are largely unknown to non-Trek fans.

I think it's pretty harsh to judge their impact against the original Star Trek series which is the most widely known sci-fi show of all-time across the world. If DS9 had more impact than that it'd be an act of the Prophets.

[BillJ]

DalekJim wrote:

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I think it's pretty harsh to judge their impact against the original Star Trek series which is the most widely known sci-fi show of all-time across the world. If DS9 had more impact than that it'd be an act of the Prophets.

Problem is that it had no long term impact. It quickly was shuffled off TV here in the States even after The National Network paid a billion dollars for the right to air all of Modern Trek. Only Next Gen is still on TV here of the four modern series.

[Nerys Myk]

DalekJim wrote:

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I think it's pretty harsh to judge their impact against the original Star Trek series which is the most widely known sci-fi show of all-time across the world. If DS9 had more impact than that it'd be an act of the Prophets.

That does little to help your argument and a lot to help the opposing view.

[Greg Cox]

DalekJim wrote:

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I'd pick Insurrection but I'd feel dirty about it. It's the only one that really resembles Star Trek.

I'd go with the new movie of the last five, but would be torn between Khan and TVH if I had all the movies to choose from.

Honestly, there's no need to bash TNG and DS9 and the rest. They all had good long runs, and have now entered TV history along with lots of great old shows that had their day in the sun. But nothing lasts forever and reboots are not the devil. The old cycle is over now, so bring the next cycle. That's just how it works.

As I've joked before, I'm old enough to have lived through at least five different live-action versions of SUPERMAN with a sixth on the way. A new take on STAR TREK was inevitable one of these days.

[Awesome Possum]

DalekJim wrote:

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I think it's pretty harsh to judge their impact against the original Star Trek series which is the most widely known sci-fi show of all-time across the world. If DS9 had more impact than that it'd be an act of the Prophets.

That's because DS9 never came close to having the same audience. That's the problem with Trek as it went on, less and less people watched it. It was a success in the same way the Titanic was. People enjoyed the ride at first, then it become less enjoyable and wound up at the bottom of ocean.

[Jackson_Roykirk]

DalekJim wrote:

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I'd pick Insurrection but I'd feel dirty about it. It's the only one that really resembles Star Trek.

It certainly resembles a two-hour TNG TV episode.