Alex Kurtzman Gets New Deal With CBS, Will Expand 'Star Trek' TV
- Thread starter Lawrence B
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Nostalgia can be a trap though. You limit yourself to going back to a certain aethetic and are once again locked into the part. People like change, when it's done right. that's the hard part I guess.
I say I'm not nostalgic but that probably isn't true. If it were up to me, Star Trek would be as art-deco as a possible. Enterprise would look like a '35 Bugatti Atlantic and the photon torpedos would be little Chrysler buildings. And I'd get bored with it after a season or two.
The thing I like about the TOS look is it really is its own look. Nothing looks like TOS trek. It actually looks alien enough that, apart from jelly bean buttons and static screens, etc, the basic design looks like its so distant from our time (plastic spray bottles nonwithstanding.. shame on you prop-guy) that it simply doesn't make sense. The more time goes on, the more alien it is. I REALLY like TOS.
TNG on the other hand looks accessible, a design that is a victim of its own success. You could learn LCARS enough to find your way around a ship or order up a pizza in a few minutes, it feels like. The Ent-D bridge looks like the lobby of a swanky 90's health spa. The civilian clothing looks the fabric all came out of the clearance rack of a JOANN store. It doesn't look alien, it looks pretty damned comfy.
TNG was when it hit the mainstream internationally. Time magazine covers? Newsweek?
TOS got cancelled after series three. We love it. All of it. You love it, I love it, but mainstream success is what happens in the eighties and nineties particularly. Touring Trek Exhibitions? Prime TV slots on UK TV? Mainstream magazines dedicating features and special issues to premiere episodes? Finales?
In its time, TNG and the Berman Era undoubtedly did better than TOS in its time. The seven years of TNG alone are testament to this. But, the important part is the ‘in its time’ and particularly for me, as you say, ‘internationally’. TOS without the rest of the franchise is Space 1999 or Galáctica. It’s not even Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet (both of which had later mini booms based on repeats twenty or thirty years later, leading to things like the Tracey Island on Blue Peter Phenomenon)
TOS with the movies, but particularly with TNG and it’s sucessors, it’s what has given the franchise its legs. In 1993 or thereabouts, Trek in the mainstream had Stewart as its face.
Now, later, a combination of events mean that mainly its TOS that hovers in the conciousness (but it’s chicken and egg, is that because it’s naturally more enduring or naturally ‘better’ or if it’s simply has appeals in certain demographics. It being a part of sixties counterculture can’t hurt it’s usefulness to be dug up) but in it’s day, TNG eclipsed it’s progenitor. Seven series and launching two more off its popularity....vs cancelled after three and then making its rep by refusing to fade away (credit where it’s due)
Yes, I am of that generation, but it doesn’t make me antiTOS or some kind of insecure fanboy for ‘my’ era, in this case it’s just cold hard fact. If you take away the advantage of age (TOS had twenty years of reruns on TNG to rack up its viewings and in a different television landscape where reruns were more relevant than they were twenty years after TNG...) then it’s inescapable. TNG is the series that took Trek properly mainstream, and did not fail in its first run. All the series then benefit from their relationship with each other, and I won’t do TOS down (it’s where it all began....) but, it’s cold hard fact that when you launched a generic Trek product back then, it was with TNG branding. Now...well, now it’s TOS...or TNG. step forward The Official Starships collection...what was the first issue? The enterprise D. First issue of Star Trek magazine circa 1993? Picard, with free TNG bookmarks. Star Trek Factfiles? With TNg now on movies, Ds9 on TV and Voyager just starting....nope, enterprise D front and centre.
It’s not even a fight, because I don’t think either can exist in their current form without the other, and there’s no antagonism...except in fans heads.
One of those things that is ‘more to it’ is that’s its offspring kept it in the public eye. One of the other things is that the sixties is sort of a thing all of its own...it’s come back like a super villain over an over. So TOS can be sixties retro, seventies retro (reruns and international sales...it wasn’t on in the UK till it was basically Doctor Who’s maternity cover in 1969) or eighties retro (the movies, wrath of Khan in particular...but TMP scrapes in at the edge of it too.) so it gets to piggyback. Also, because we have been fond of it a long time, those offspring shows will give us things like Shatner and Stewart on the cover of TIME and stuff like that...before we get to the children who grew up in the seventies (rerun era into movie era) going to it as baseline Trek...hence the 09 reboot. It becomes a self perpetuating thing...which I think will also happen for TNG, and maybe Voyager at a push. Ds9 is niche, to an extent, and we all know what happened to poor ENT.
how is DS9 niche but VOY, watched by less people, is not?
DS9 was different. VOY tried to walk in a superior's footprints.
VOY attempted to be great Trek, DS9 attempted to be great TV which happened to take place in the Trekverse.
Syndication vs network tent pole in US I think....Voyager trends on Netflix, and anecdotally seems to be ‘remembered’ more amongst the general populace. Voyager got a massive media push when it launched, bigger than Ds9s equivalent. Ds9 was the spin off, oyager was the replacement, for the incredibly popular TNG. again...I love Ds9, it was my favourite Trek for a loooong time, possibly still is, but it is niche compared to TNG and VOY. To look at another silly metric...cosplayers. How many Seven of Nines, even in general cosplay? How many Kira? Deanna? Janice Rand?
Voy seems to be remembered well by the generation below mine...it’s ‘their’ Trek. Which is probably something to think about in relation to where Ent misfired. Strong woman captain to Ents smurfette syndrome.
In fairness that catsuit and the actress filling it probably saved that show from early cancellation. Unfortunately B&B thought that was a forumula for success and ran with it when it was time for ENT
"get the broad a catsuit" I somehow imagine being said behind the scenes. We're lucky everyone including Porthos wasn't in a catsuit.
Not many. I saw a Deanna Troi at a Comic Con once and I vaguely remember a Janice beehive a decade or so ago, but I definatley never saw a women desperate enough to dress as 7of9
I only see cosplayers on sites like kotaku etc. There’s was that Borg queen data couple at a Trek com a few years back.
And desperate enough?
Seven is demure next to some traditional cosplay characters. Did no one else experience the horror of those two hairy dudes in Dirty Pair outfits in anime mags in the nineties?
I wasn't into anime in the nineties or....ever. so I have no idea what you are talking about
Ah well...cosplay is an anime term. We used to call it fancy dress, or masquerade, which are it’s roots in the West...but cosplay is the anime variant, which has now enveloped the older forms and terms, especially as a more...Japanese approach...is now taken. You don’t cosplay in your off the shelf rubies uniform with a playmates phaser anymore, hell no...you get a tailored uniform, matches to onscreen, ideally handmade yourself, 3D printed phaser, again ideally made entirely by your own hand, then you you use your makeup skills to as closely match an actual character, and pose like billy-oh for a photo shoot, possibly with a behind the scenes video. It’s a bit more involved than ‘dress up’ these days xD
Quick yahoo search...
https://www.tumblr.com/search/seven of nine cosplay
The kei and Yuri male cosplayers appear to not exist on the internet.
Personally, I think the best option would be to do either "Ambassador Picard", maybe with a cameo or two by a new crew of the Enterprise-E (With either Worf or Stephen Culp's Matthew Madden as CO) as a standalone or combine it with the Academy idea as Commandant Picard.
If they did the miniseries the right way, they could have it be a swan song to Picard, have cameos for most of the TNG cast, and allow for teasers for several spinoff series depending upon what fans had a great reaction to.
That last sentence takes me straight to Police Academy. That would work...he even has a fish....
I'm glad that the discussion finally moved on to the actual content of the Kurtzman rumors, but to take a small backward step, I wanted to point out that "Requiem for Methuselah" implies that there is a window at the front of the bridge. The ship is frozen and miniaturized. When Kirk leans down to look at it he looks directly at the viewscreen location as if he can see in. An inside shot shows Kirk visible on the "viewscreen" even though the ship is frozen and has been since it was in space. Seems like a window in that scene.
https://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/patrick-stewart-star-trek-return/
Patrick Stewart Set For Big ‘Star Trek’ Payday
Producers ready to shovel out cash to save 'Discovery' disaster!
Lol, I know where this article is coming from. But its funny anyway
Patrick Stewart Set For Big ‘Star Trek’ Payday
Producers ready to shovel out cash to save 'Discovery' disaster!
Lol, I know where this article is coming from. But its funny anyway
dafuq?
It's both. It can be both!
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