Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?

[Lynx]

I bet folks said the same before TNG came on the scene.
The more (some) fans change, the more (some) fans stay the same.

Which is quite normal.
And remember, if you alienate the loyal fans who have been there from the start, then you are in trouble.

I know about a rock band who had been very succesful for some years. Then they decided to try to attach new, younger fans by adapting their music to a more lightweighted "pop" sound so they made an album which was quite different from what they had done before.

It backfiredd. many of the old, loyal fans thought they had "sold out" and turned their back on them and they didn't gain any new fans either because the new fans they wanted to attract already had their share of more lightweight bands and didn't care about an older hard rock band who all of a sudden change their style.

The band realized their mistake and on the next album they were back to the old style again. But the damage was done and they never became as popular as they once had been.

I have to disagree; IMO it needs less continuity. It needs to totally detach itself from pre-existing series.

TNG's approach was more or less to do exactly that. It treated Star Trek as a storytelling engine - the nice vaguely-pacifist Federation go out into a psychedelic and surreal universe, and stories arise from the people and places they encounter, with tight plotting because you generally have 45 minutes to tell a complete story. TNG didn't really care about lining up with TOS, nor about reusing its ideas (beyond one-offs like Relics), and didn't even give much thought to its own episode-to-episode continuity. The focus was always on telling a good original story within any given episode, without worrying if it contradicted throwaway lines (or even major plot points) from other episodes.

That approach is, I think, the one that will eventually give us a truly superb new Star Trek series - when writers see Star Trek as an ethos that can birth entirely new stories, rather than a MCU-style set of existing characters and ideas to be remixed and revisited endlessly.

I have to disagree here.

Star Trek needs continuity, built on TOS, TNG, DS9 and maybe VOY to build from there and move on.

Less continuity will mean chaos, just like those silly Batman movies when The Joker is killed of in one movie and then returns in another as som punk rocker with bad makeup and no one cares about why.

TNG was actually realistic when it came to show up an Universe which had changed somewhat in hundred years or so while series like ENT and DSC totally failed, instead messing up established Trek history in the worst possible ways.

Now we have all those different universes and timelines where something which happens in one of those don't exist in the next one and where ego-maiac psroducers tries to be "remembered" by killing off one main character here and destroy another important planet and species there. If that continues, Star Trek will become like Star Wars, a mess which rapidly will lose its fans.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek needs continuity, built on TOS, TNG, DS9 and maybe VOY to build from there and move on.

If you actually watched the modern stuff, you'd know the constant references to everything and anything in Trek's past are truly tiresome.

Spoiler: something recent

A prequel episode about Trelane for no reason, that points out at the end that Trelane is Q's son?

Less continuity will mean chaos, just like those silly Batman movies when The Joker is killed of in one movie and then returns in another as som punk rocker with bad makeup and no one cares about why.

That's because it's a different world with a different Batman and Joker, ones who never met before. A remake.
DC have even had crossovers on TV and film explaining this stuff for those who need an in-universe explanation

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[Lynx]

If you actually watched the modern stuff, you'd know the constant references to everything and anything in Trek's past are truly tiresome.

Spoiler: something recent

A prequel episode about Trelane for no reason, that points out at the end that Trelane is Q's son?

That's because it's a different world with a different Batman and Joker, ones who never met before. A remake.
DC have even had crossovers on TV and film explaining this stuff for those who need an in-universe explanation

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Just what I mean, different universes, crossovers and a total mess of everything.

As for the spoiler, I can actually agree.
But what to expect in the current Trek era?

 

[Nyotarules]

Which is quite normal.
And remember, if you alienate the loyal fans who have been there from the start, then you are in trouble.

I know about a rock band who had been very succesful for some years. Then they decided to try to attach new, younger fans by adapting their music to a more lightweighted "pop" sound so they made an album which was quite different from what they had done before.

It backfiredd. many of the old, loyal fans thought they had "sold out" and turned their back on them and they didn't gain any new fans either because the new fans they wanted to attract already had their share of more lightweight bands and didn't care about an older hard rock band who all of a sudden change their style.

The band realized their mistake and on the next album they were back to the old style again. But the damage was done and they never became as popular as they once had been.



I have to disagree here.

Star Trek needs continuity, built on TOS, TNG, DS9 and maybe VOY to build from there and move on.

Less continuity will mean chaos, just like those silly Batman movies when The Joker is killed of in one movie and then returns in another as som punk rocker with bad makeup and no one cares about why.

TNG was actually realistic when it came to show up an Universe which had changed somewhat in hundred years or so while series like ENT and DSC totally failed, instead messing up established Trek history in the worst possible ways.

Now we have all those different universes and timelines where something which happens in one of those don't exist in the next one and where ego-maiac psroducers tries to be "remembered" by killing off one main character here and destroy another important planet and species there. If that continues, Star Trek will become like Star Wars, a mess which rapidly will lose its fans.

You mean loyal fans like this? Loyal fans are not a monolith. There will always be fans that complain about something. It is not the producers' job to be 'pleasing loyal fans'.

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