• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

Timecaptain.
I remember that episode:
ABVrRAZ.jpg
 
John Eaves really opened up a Pandora's Box here. It seems like an answer to so many questions about the direction of the franchise over recent years and yet it raises bigger questions now that we know there are "things". What are these legal requirements I wonder.
 
Last edited:
In the general sense, it would surprise me because it's wildly unlikely. Plenty of people are good at those kinds of jobs, and major entertainment conglomerates hire such people.
You would think so, wouldn't you?

I admire your optimism, but I have spent WAY too much time working with corporate executives -- and for that matter, corporate lawyers -- to believe that more than half of them have any idea what the fuck they're doing. I've seen regional directors for fortune 500 companies get fired for falsifying revenue reports; I know of at least three legal consultants who were fired from their law firms for essentially blackmailing one of Larry Nassar's victims; I once knew a VP of sales who was prosecuted for embezzlement and wire fraud because he tried to pay off his bookie with the corporate credit card.

Do not underestimate the power of the Peter Principal. If it sometimes seems like people in very large organizations are promoted to levels inversely proportional to their level of competence, oftentimes that is EXACTLY what is happening.

In the more specific sense, because if it were so, it wouldn't just affect Star Trek. Viacom owned, and the split divided up, tons of valuable IP content. If the terms of the split weren't hashed out in sufficient detail for the successor companies to go about their business without stepping on one another's toes, there would have been a whole string of assorted lawsuits over the past dozen years... and that simply hasn't happened.
The majority of those IPs are cookie cutter sitcoms, cop shows or procedural dramas, none of which have that big a tentpole as far as merchandising or cross-medium promotion. Star Trek is one of the few that has both TV and film installments plus merchandise and tie-in materials, and it's probably the ONLY one that either of them owned that would ever have issues with an unauthorized person trying to appropriate it (e.g. Axanar).

Which might actually explain the oversight: the lawyers who dealt with the split simply assumed the intellectual property situation was perfectly straightforward and didn't realize Star Trek was an outlier from the usual assumptions. Somebody didn't do their homework.
 
Honestly I think the whole 25% design thing is just for merchandising. They wanted them to design a new Enterprise that was legally distinct so they could sell it as it's own thing.
Star Trek Discovery: The Search For More Money

I suppose producers can do whatever the fuck they want with their property. But why do they have to call it Prime? It would fix exactly 50% of all problems if they admitted that it looks different because it is supposed to be different (for $$ reasons) and is not Prime (the other 50% is writing, that can't be helped). Most fans would totally understand that STD is a money grab, I doubt CBS would lose many viewers (if any) if they admitted STD is not Prime. Just don't take your own fans for idiots, please!
 
The Facebook post seems to have gone, so that seems reasonable.
I can't seem to find any trace of John Eaves or Scott Schneider on Facebook at all now. I wasn't connected to them before, but I could find their pages pretty easily. :shrug:
 
Star Trek Discovery: The Search For More Money

I suppose producers can do whatever the fuck they want with their property. But why do they have to call it Prime? It would fix exactly 50% of all problems if they admitted that it looks different because it is supposed to be different (for $$ reasons) and is not Prime (the other 50% is writing, that can't be helped). Most fans would totally understand that STD is a money grab, I doubt CBS would lose many viewers (if any) if they admitted STD is not Prime. Just don't take your own fans for idiots, please!

They would also loose 50% of their audience, that stays with the show even though it's shit, purely out of brand loyalty. Take that away - and for many people, the shared history is a big part of that brand loyalty - and they're going to tune out and watch Lost in Space and the Expanse instead.
 
Well, Trekcore has apparently taken down their article - I guess Eaves is a friendly source - but Screenrant quoted Eaves at length:

“Back in April of 2017 the task of the Enterprise making an appearance came to be and work was to start right away,” Eaves explained (with some of the grammar modified for readability). “The task started with the guideline that the Enterprise for Discovery had to be 25% different, otherwise production would have most likely been able to use the original design from the 60's. But that couldn’t happen so we took Jefferies’ original concepts and with great care tried to be as faithful as possible. We had the advantage of a ten-year gap in Trek history to retro the ship a bit with elements that could be removed and replaced somewhere in the time frame of Discovery and the Original series...

...After Enterprise, properties of Star Trek ownership changed hands and was divided,, so what was able to cross TV shows up to that point changed and a lot of the crossover was no longer allowed,” he said. “That is why when JJ [Abrams]’s movie came along everything had to be different. The alternate universe concept was what really made that movie happen in a way as to not cross the new boundaries and give Trek a new footing to continue.”
 
Star Trek Discovery: The Search For More Money

I suppose producers can do whatever the fuck they want with their property. But why do they have to call it Prime?

Why does it matter? If you don't want it to be prime, then pretend to yourself it's not. But ultimately, the reality is whatever the current owners of Trek say is prime, IS PRIME. End of story. The official definition of canon is the story, events, and people in the work of fiction. NOT THE LOOK. NOOOOOTT THHHE LOOOOOK. Not the design of the Enterprise, not the uniforms, not the color of a character's eyes, not the number of pedals of a background flower on an alien planet in the 36th episode of TOS.

The more important question is why do fans have to be pedantic and neurotic about the minutiae of details that couldn't even possibly matter to the overall narritve of the story? Star Trek fans miss the entire point of entertainment and what it's supposed to be. It's entertaiment, not a historical documentary. I'm guessing it's because alot of fans are just insane pedants as their overwhelmingly most characteristic personiaity trait. I say this as someone who loves Trek design work obsessively, but I understand that entertainment needs to evolve, and I am happy for it because we get new stuff and not the same old stuff we've seen for 50 years. Prime, Kelvin Timeline, or other? Guess what? It's all fiction meant to entertain and make money. Nothing else. That's Trek's only purpose.
 
I've been in both places. As a kid, I really valued consistency. As I've gotten older, I'm excited to see how the original ideas can be updated with modern FX. That's a tremendous opportunity, really. But I still think they should be loyal to the original concepts, as much as possible. (But then, I doubt many people disagree with that -- it's just a question of how much change is too much.)
 
I've been in both places. As a kid, I really valued consistency. As I've gotten older, I'm excited to see how the original ideas can be updated with modern FX. That's a tremendous opportunity, really. But I still think they should be loyal to the original concepts, as much as possible. (But then, I doubt many people disagree with that -- it's just a question of how much change is too much.)

For sure. When we see the Enterprise bridge, I hope it's somewhat familar as the TOS bridge, but only somewhat. It needs to more closely match the Discovery and Shenzhou bridges. Still, a few subtle callbacks to TOS would be sweet. But, unlike some fans, I don't want it to be an EXACT REPLICA of the 1966 set.
 
Do not underestimate the power of the Peter Principal. If it sometimes seems like people in very large organizations are promoted to levels inversely proportional to their level of competence, oftentimes that is EXACTLY what is happening.

A coworker of mine and myself theorised that this happens because the competent ones are exactly those whom you _don't_ want to move away from what they're good at. Hence the other ones get promoted, if they have the right "attitude".

Star Trek Discovery: The Search For More Money

Yeah, well they _are_ a business.

Why does it matter? If you don't want it to be prime, then pretend to yourself it's not. But ultimately, the reality is whatever the current owners of Trek say is prime, IS PRIME. End of story.

Thank you.

I'm guessing it's because alot of fans are just insane pedants as their overwhelmingly most characteristic personiaity trait.

Guilty as charged. However, I can still understand the value or need for change, and the relative unimportance of consistency across a long franchise. The only reason why I really value consistency is that it helps me immerse myself into this universe as if it were real.
 
If they wanted to create a new timeline, it could have been done in episode 1. They want the recognition of being linked to TOS, with as few constraints as they can get away with.
 
A coworker of mine and myself theorised that this happens because the competent ones are exactly those whom you _don't_ want to move away from what they're good at. Hence the other ones get promoted, if they have the right "attitude".

I believe Scott Adams described that as "The Dilbert Principle," back in the good old days before he went nuts.
 
At this point, I don't care much what it looks like. It's not good enough to matter. I probably care more whether Sheldon and Amy get married. Okay, I barely know who they are. Okay, I barely know who Amy is. It's Amy, right?

As for STD - fighting about whether something is "Prime" or not is fighting over angels on the head of a pin. There was no such thing as a "Prime Timeline" in 2007...or an "Alternate Timeline," for that matter. It has nothing to do with what Star Trek is or isn't.
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top