Sometimes taking a break is the best thing for a franchise.
News WB/Paramount merger talks
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Explain, please.
From an outsider's perspective WB has been extremely tight fisted with money, meaning a probable reduction in output. Would someone say that the break from ENT to STAR TREK 2009 was a benefit?
Was TOS to TMP a benefit?
I am curious to this perspective and how the benefit the franchise.
Nor will I.
Is that the definition of good?
People define words so oddly nowadays.
Yes, it built up a hunger after 10 years of reruns, rumors and news reports.
I wasn't defining anything. But it's not necessarily bad. Star Trek does well after breaks. That's been demonstrated by history.
Yes I think so.
Sometimes things get stale and only time can re-ignite hunger and creativity.
It goes back to the whole 'franchise fatigue' debate.
Curious
Equally curious.
I don't know if I buy in to that, nor do I find it good in that sense.
All things go in cycles.
You can't truly appreciate the blossoming of spring without the dormancy of the winter.
While pithy, that doesn't answer the question of "Why is it good?" and did you find the other dormant periods to be make you more appreciative of the newer content?
While I can say I appreciated the break from ENT to 09 and the Kelvin films were far and away a step above VOY and ENT and even the TNG films for me, I would not say the same around TMP, or TNG from TOS.
It's only been six years since the current era of Trek began and you think it's already going stale and in need of a rest?
Obviously.
All that variety, different formats, working to appeal to multiple audience segments, while trying to be competitive in a far more diverse media climate sure got boring real fast.
Seems like yesterday that people were lamenting the lack of Trek TV shows, and how sad it was that the Kelvin timeline was the only continuation and it was only films.
So boring.
still annoyed they didn't return to the original name, pre Fox, of 20th Century Pictures. no appreciation for movie history.
case in point, the gaps between Star Wars trilogies was perfect, execution aside. not so long to exit pop culture, but long enough for the children to become parents themselves.
That is not a current cultural value to appreciate history.
I don't think Star Trek needs a break yet. There are far fewer episodes per season and the shows are all different enough for Trek to get stale quickly. On the other hand, I also have had enough Star Trek in my life that I won't cry if I don't get any more. It's been around long enough for me to be satisfied.
I think the gap between the end of the final episode of TOS and the premiere of TMP helped the movie tremendously. Without that hunger to see the cast in a new adventure built to that level, the film probably wouldn't have made the box office money it did - especially since it seemed to not be the kind of movie fans in general really wanted. So, yes, the gap helped Star Trek. Indirectly, that led to the shows you're all enjoying today.
The gap between ENT and ST09 helped the Bad Robot films launch with such great success. So did the promise of a more hip and continuity free movie that people didn't need to be a Trekkie/Trekker to follow.
Star Trek, though, works best on TV and that return to weekly Star Trek was a long time coming. So building the hunger helps reinvigorate the franchise. I don't think we're at fatigue levels yet, but studios have to be careful. Too much content leads to a saturation point and I feel like Star Trek's point was always lower than Star Wars or Marvel. Both of those properties have wider appeal than Trek. Fatigue could set in sooner. But not yet.
I think the gap between the end of the final episode of TOS and the premiere of TMP helped the movie tremendously. Without that hunger to see the cast in a new adventure built to that level, the film probably wouldn't have made the box office money it did - especially since it seemed to not be the kind of movie fans in general really wanted. So, yes, the gap helped Star Trek. Indirectly, that led to the shows you're all enjoying today.
The gap between ENT and ST09 helped the Bad Robot films launch with such great success. So did the promise of a more hip and continuity free movie that people didn't need to be a Trekkie/Trekker to follow.
Star Trek, though, works best on TV and that return to weekly Star Trek was a long time coming. So building the hunger helps reinvigorate the franchise. I don't think we're at fatigue levels yet, but studios have to be careful. Too much content leads to a saturation point and I feel like Star Trek's point was always lower than Star Wars or Marvel. Both of those properties have wider appeal than Trek. Fatigue could set in sooner. But not yet.
Last edited:
I wouldn't say TMP was better than TOS, but I would've appreciated catching up with them in live-action after 10 years (similar to how I felt about Picard with the TNG Cast) and the visual upgrade would've blown me away. Having seen TMP in an actual theater in 2019 for the 40th Anniversary screening, I can very safely say I would've thought TMP was "better" back in 1979, at least on a technical level, along with the soundtrack, and everything would've kept me in an afterglow. During a time when VCRs and Betamax Players were super-expensive, it would've been years before I'd be able to see it again, on TV. So my impression during that time would've been "TMP was an experience! You had to have been there!"
With TNG, much like with what happened with DSC, I would've been excited for Star Trek to return to television. It would've felt like an event to me in 1987, just like it did in 2017.
After that, we're getting into territory where I was already a fan.
I was soooooooo sick of the Berman Era. I tuned out in 1999. Six years earlier than when it actually ended. So it wasn't a four-year gap for me heading into the 2009 Film, it was a 10-year gap. A lot of people tuned out long before 2005. Really, it was just the stragglers, the ENT Fans, and the Hate-Watchers who were left. I was curious to see what Star Trek as a Comic Book Movie would look like. But I was more excited about the possibility of the new movies leading back to Star Trek on TV. For the first time, I was looking forward to and interested in more Star Trek, instead of thinking, "Is that thing still going?! Why don't the rest of you who are complaining do what I did and stop watching?"
Then comes Disco. I don't care what anyone else says, I love the series. It got me hooked on Star Trek again for the first time in two decades. If it had just been more Berman Trek the entire time, and this was the next off the line, that excitement wouldn't have been there. I would've felt the same way I felt about ENT. "Why are they still going with this?"
With the Kurtzman Era, we're nowhere close to where things were at the end of the Berman Era. The ones who are whining, and are saying it is, are the people who never gave it a serious chance to begin with and are still just thinking what they've thought since at least the early-2000s. So, for that, I can conclude it's not anything the Kurtzman Series did wrong, it's just all the accumulated baggage some of these people bring to their viewing experience. To which I tell them, "For the love of God, please just stop watching already and move on with your life!"
If someone's willing to give something an actual chance, then great. If not, then I think they shouldn't bother because it's a waste of time.
Last edited:
Warnermount
Berman era Trek was definitely feeling tired and out of gas towards the end. Clearly Trek needed a break at that time and needed some new blood behind the scenes.
The current era of Trek is different. I don't think this mega-budget Star Trek is working and needs a new approach. People around here get annoyed when I say that, and will dispute it, but you can look at the numbers.
There's a reason the Kelvin-verse movies aren't getting made anymore (you can look at the multiple), and PARA is a publicly traded company; you can see the earnings reports.
I think Star Trek needs a reboot with lower budgets, less nostalgia and less action. That's my OPINION.
The current era of Trek is different. I don't think this mega-budget Star Trek is working and needs a new approach. People around here get annoyed when I say that, and will dispute it, but you can look at the numbers.
There's a reason the Kelvin-verse movies aren't getting made anymore (you can look at the multiple), and PARA is a publicly traded company; you can see the earnings reports.
I think Star Trek needs a reboot with lower budgets, less nostalgia and less action. That's my OPINION.
I will say this, I agree that I prefer my Star Trek to look forward instead of swimming in callbacks, Easter Eggs and reunions. Some fans love that stuff, but I already know prior Trek. If I want to revisit, I'll pop in a disc. As much as Berman made some choices I didn't agree with, I actually liked that he and Roddenberry barely looked back at TOS during the first few TNG years. Just enough to know this was a legit continuation but it stood totally on its own with little connection to past characters. Just another Enterprise with a different crew. No half-relatives of Spock or Khan or constant music quotes and in-jokes.
But, like you, that's just an opinion. I don't think current Trek needs a reboot, I just feel like the next show needs to be totally separate while still in the same universe.
But, like you, that's just an opinion. I don't think current Trek needs a reboot, I just feel like the next show needs to be totally separate while still in the same universe.
Less action is interesting, given the original pitch was an "action/adventure" show.
I would tend to agree, except, as noted, the numbers are not there, and when the numbers increase is when there is the familiar, there is the touchstones, there are familiar characters. Regardless of what we might think here, what gets the most clicks, interest, and talking points around the interwebs is not the new, but the old. Picard Season 3 is the biggest example of this. It did nothing different story wise that had not been done in previous seasons, but it had the familiar. Discovery Season 2 brought in Pike, and spun off a new show.
The trend is towards the familiar. And even in the unfamiliar the question defaults to "Where is this (alien, character, planet)?"
1999 is a big turning point actually. DS9 ends. The fallout from INS shows the TNG films likely won't equal the quality or durability of the TOS films. Ronald D. Moore quickly comes and goes from VGR. That and "Equinox" holds a magnifying glass up to VGR's flaws, despite seasons 4 and 5 being that series' high point.
If 1994-1996 was the Berman era's high point, 1999 was the first major stumble that began the precipitous fall.
Every year the budgets do seem to drop... The streaming portion of NuTrek was until recently produced under the streaming financial bubble environment .
Why a reboot?
The thing though is the Berman era throughout 25 seasons established far far more lore than TOS+TAS did in 3.5 seasons. Anything set in local space not set 1000 years in the future will come up against the well what happened next? wall.
I can understand there being a potion of the fanbase not being interested in the continuity or established lore, but throwing everything out is bound to alienate others...
This comment...misses the point.
It's not a lack of interest. It's a feeling of constraint and constant references that feel off-putting, even to established fans.
Similar threads
