Okay, I don't get this. Since when were you required to log in umpteen hours of STAR TREK before you're allowed to do anything new or interesting with the more "established" characters. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer had made exactly zero previous Trek episodes or movies before they killed off Spock and gave Kirk a hitherto-unmentioned son. They hadn't "proven" themselves either.
And to address your latter points: Since when has the goal been to carefully avoid doing anything "divisive" by (gasp!) actually telling a story that has an impact on the character? The idea is to tell exciting NEW stories about Spock and Picard, not to wrap the characters carefully in bubble wrap like sacred relics that have to stay preserved exactly as we remember them.
We would prefer that the new shows steer clear of "major" stories about the more "iconic" characters and tell inconsequential stories instead? Just to avoid scuffing our precious memories?
I'm sorry Greg, but I didn't say we should avoid divisive stories, or new talent, I was trying to diplomatically say (in a way that tried not to hurt people's feelings), that I have very little faith in this specific creative team's ability to handle a classic character. I hope I am pleasantly surprised and wrong.
I wonder why I say anything here at all, because I just end up feeling bad for having spoken up half of the time. In real life, I am anxious and find it hard to speak up, let alone when people employ ridicule, as a couple of people replying to that post did, and get up-voted for it as usual by other members.
But at the end of the day, it's just my opinion. I don't want to condemn the producers out of spite, just discuss the show as if I were among friends. That latter is perhaps my mistake.
Also, you might not be right, despite your qualification, or up-votes.
I'm sorry to put it that way, because I know they have feelings, and probably take pride in their work, but its my honest feelings on the matter.
Akiva Goldsman hasn't got a great CV, nor Alex Kurtzman. I'm sure they would be fine working on something I don't care about, that does not require verisimilitude. I wasn't arguing that Harve Bennet or Nick Meyer were unqualified to give Star Trek a go. I was suggesting others didn't have prior knocks against their record.
Lets look at that record. The 90s Lost in Space film with Matt LeBlanc. The Mummy reboot, which was meant to launch a Universal Monster shared universe. Tranformers. These are not critical darlings (to put it mildly), and are widely derided, even if they have been marketed to the point where they can't fail to earn millions.
I don't take critics as gospel, but to quote Rotten Tomatoes consensus:
"believable characters are hard to come by in Transformers"
So, what, the entire point of a dramatist's career then, is missing from the film? The cynic in me thinks of a Hollywood clique that will have big budgets shoved at them no matter what they do, perhaps because they treat art purely as business, rather than people like Guillermo Del Toro who have to labour for every penny studios give them.
With TV budgets being what they are, and short seasons being more like motion pictures, they, to put it another way, have had something like
7 times the length of Wrath of Khan, to tell a good story. People are unconvinced they have done so once. Tell me, since you brought him into this, what was Nick Meyer's record after one film?
And I am not even a hardened social Darwinist who believes in writing people off. In a workplace, I'm not a fan of monitoring stats, or dismissing workers; we are all built differently, and everyone deserves a chance to earn a living. It's just we are not talking about someone who is on the poverty line, not flipping enough burgers for the corporation's next annual growth target. It feels like people who were handed the keys to apparently all of Star Trek, should be held to a higher critical standard.
Maybe the politics is complicated enough the power of the writing team, and Kirsten Beyer, who I like in particular, can pull season two off, irrelevant of what directives or limitations they receive. Maybe Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman are being unfairly represented, and were themselves victims of Hollywood's notorious environment. But I was just trying to talk about these concerns, without hopefully anyone reading these forums and falling into despair at what we fans say amongst ourselves.
