Public perception of Star Trek?

The opposite. Some of my formerly non-Trek fans even ended up taking/buying some of my DVD's when I started upscaling the collection to Bluray.

After STID, I didn't have my copy of TWOK for months because it was doing the rounds

 

When the 2009 film came out I used to have people tell me they never watched any of the series. I would tell them "You don't need to, just watch the 2009 film and you should be fine." In a similar situation to another poster in this thread: In high school, there were those who thought that Trek was boring based on TMP.

I'm not one of those who think that Trek belongs on television. I think it can work on television as it can on the big screen. The 2009 film and 2013 film were hit and miss, respectively. I think the 2016 film will solidify if this series has real bite. Yeah, those casual fans may like stuff that go boom, but even with the Transformers films people know what to expect and they're dismissed as seriously mindless and forgetful (or numbing) entertainment, very light emphasis on 'entertainment.'

Although, with that said: Furious 7 was headache-inducing for me, but was 'successful.' (Kurt Russell was the only thing I actually liked in the film...and maybe the hot British girl). Ironically, that film wasn't directed by Justin Lin and wasn't as solid as, say, Fast Five which Lin did direct, a film I did enjoy out of all the F&F films.

 

I'm not gonna comment on a cartoon, but I definitely think you're right about mistakes being made. One of them was definitely the nearly four year gap (!) between movie releases, for sure they should've done something to strike while the iron was hot on this brand new take on Star Trek, and while everybody was still talking about it. I think by the time STID reached theaters a lot of that potential had been whittled away. They also fumbled the play when it came to merchandising. The toy range for the 2009 movie stank, and was extremely hard to find in stores, and STID had practically nothing except the video game to back it up in terms of hooking in the casual audience (and the video game got poor reviews.)

On the other hand, I do know plenty of non-Trekkies who saw both movies and loved them, even though they wouldn't touch any of the old material with a six foot pole. But yeah. It's like the second movie had no market saturation at all. I still don't know why that was the case, but I'm sure it could've been avoided somehow.

I was actually thinking about this very topic yesterday when I was watching a movie reviewer on TV going on about how great The Force Awakens is an how great JJ Abrams is, etc. And it crossed my mind, how nobody ever even MENTIONS his two Trek movies, not even in passing when talking about his back catalogue. All this publicity for the new Star Wars could bring an MASSIVE cross-over audience to the new Trek movies if only someone was out there making a bigger deal of the Abrams connection, say encouraging people to give ST09 and STID a try if they liked The Force Awakens. But instead it's just like they never existed.

 

^
Lance,

At least in the Beyond trailer they made sure to mention JJ as a producer. And even though the trailer didn't show in front of TFA for me, if it did for other Star Wars showings that might have been an attempt to get that crossover audience.

I do wish Paramount would put more merchandise out there, not for specialty stores or collectors but for the general public. One of the reasons I think a cartoon could help is that it would get the brand out there, get kids interested, and help sell more merchandise. I mean the Star Wars merchandising, even between films is crazy. And The Clone Wars and now Rebels are bringing new fans into Star Wars and will keep it going.

Granted Star Trek is a different beast. It's not as colorful or as full of adventure as Star Wars. It's not as swashbuckling and its characters aren't as broadly (or simply?) defined. That being said, Trek can be an action-adventure show when it wants to be, and DS9 turned into something of a war show. And Trek does have cool ships that would make nice toys. Some cool aliens as well.

Joel Kirk,

I also wasn't the biggest fan of F&F 7. I thought Statham was mostly wasted. Fast Five is my favorite of that franchise.

 

All the non Star Trek fans I know liked the movies but couldn't give two shits beyond that. All the Star Trek fans I know don't like the films.

 

That sucks. If only we could get more of a nice balance of both casual and committed fans. Though I'm a Trek fan and I did like the Abrams films, particularly Trek '09. I wasn't that big a fan of Into Darkness but I don't hate it. It was a well made, exciting film for the most part.

 

The polls here suggest that at least most Trek fans on this site liked the films. Though we are a small study group.

 

The last poll (in the General Trek Discussion section) said about a quarter liked it, half didn't, and a quarter were kind of "meh."

About the only way you're going to get "most liked it" would be to run the poll in the Star Trek Movies XI+ section.

 

Star Trek trailer, reaction compilation.
Everybody liked Spock and McCoy scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgpjcAo6Yho

 

A friend of mine recently dropped this one when we saw the trailer for Trek 3, when Spock got beamed:
"Hey, I've seen that effect in Charmed years ago. Is that seriously what they are going for in a movie? Couldn't they come up with something better?"

Which was an interesting comment. A) the effect seemed lame B) the entire concept of beaming felt outdated to him.

And it's little stuff like this that seems to add up to a general lack of interest in Star Trek.

 

I would love to hope that this is happening somewhere, because to me it's like the ultimate way to cross-promote the hell out of this thing (and maybe reel in a lot of casuals who are buying Star Wars tix to give the nuTrek movies a go.)

 

Link? Unless you mean the 'Abrams vs Prime' or 'Return to Prime' one.

EDIT: Going by the numbers you provided, I'm guessing you meant this one.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=276586&page=5

A thread about a preference for setting, not like/dislike for any of the individual movies. I liked Abrams movies, but I voted 'don't care' on that poll.

Yes, I was referring to the thread that was devoted to grading STID and '09 in XI-. However, in spite of being implied to attract only cheerleaders, they actually had far more 'hated it' votes (an overall minority remember) than the total number of people who participated in the Gen Trek poll at all.

 

I think the movie going public (mostly young people, remember) think of Trek as an entertaining sci-fi franchise, but not iconic or memorable compared to Star Wars, superhero franchises, Harry Potter, etc. Maybe part of the problem is the big wait between movies.

Using Nutrek to try to push old Trek would probably backfire. Old trek is much much lower budget, much slower pace, and much cheesier. Keeping the two separate in the minds of the public is a commercial advantage.

I'm not going to take the opinion of a Charmed fan seriously.

 

I take it your friend has no familiarity with Star Trek?

Was he saying the actual VFX was what they used on Charmed?

How is "beaming" outdated?

 

I guess like some others here, this place is my Trekgeekverse as I know few fans outside it (though it's always a pleasure to meet one - bit like finding a fellow Mason ).

Most of social and work circle aren't SF or comic-book fans, but will binge-watch GoT, HoC, WD, BB - I guess the usual suspects?

As for perceptions, it's probably akin to Galaxy Quest

 

Well, that oversimplifies a complicated history. For those here who may not know the details of Star Trek sausage making:

Paramount wanted a ST movie before Star Wars, and commissioned treatments and scripts, finally resulting in Phil Kaufman's Star Trek—The Motion Picture (nee Planet of the Titans) in development for about 9 months, but pulled the plug just weeks before Star Wars' release, because they:

a) had rejected the Scott-Bryant script in March of '77
b) they didn't like Kaufman's first treatment for a suggested revision
c) there was a shake up in the studio management, which tends to purge works in progress by the previous regime, and
d) they feared Star Wars would steal their thunder.​

So Star Trek II (nee Star Trek Phase II) was hatched because Paramount wanted to start their own network, and they saw the Star Trek phenomenon as a great way to capitalize on one of their properties to launch said network with a built-in audience. But STII was doomed when Gulf+Western's Charlie Bluhdorn nixed the investments necessary when he concluded that the numbers weren't there, stopping Barry Diller from launching this 4th network (which Diller finally did a decade later with Fox).

Finally, Paramount had already sunk a bunch of money into the STII project, with sets nearly completed, etc., and since Close Encounters proved that Star Wars wasn't a fluke, and that there WAS an audience for sci-fi, they in desperation grabbed the pilot script for STII and turned it into ST:TMP in order to a) recoup the costs of the aborted previous projects and b) finally do what they originally set out to do: make a Star Trek movie.

Mmm. Sausage.

 

I'm boggled that they rejected a Phil Kaufman script.

The man who would go on to write (or co-write?) the legendary "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Right Stuff," and previously wrote "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

(I realized that he also would write the heavily flawed and dated adaptation for Michael Crichton's "Rising Sun," featuring my two favorite leads at that time: Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery).

 

Well, Kaufman never got to the script stage. He wrote one treatment in April 1977, and was still working on the story when the ax dropped on May 8, 1977, before he could actually finish a screenplay.

Also, Kaufman didn't co-write Raiders. He brainstormed it with Lucas and introduced the Ark of the Covenant to the story, etc., but he stepped away from it when they hired Kasdan to write it. That's why he shares a "Story By" credit with Lucas on the film but no writing credits per se.

 

I'm reading the article "The Forever Franchise" in the latest Wired magazine, and there Marc Evans is quoted saying: "I often think about the areas of the Star Trek universe that haven't been taken advantage of. Like, I'll be ridiculous with you, but what would Star Trek: Zero Dark Thirty look like? Where is the SEAL Team Six of the Star Trek universe? That fascinates me."