Man, this thread brings back so many memories from when I was indoctrinated into the Anti-Woke Grift Cult which pushed this fake news. Even to this day, I can see a demonic spectre of Gary "Nerdrotic" Beuchler chanting "JAR JAR ABRAMS... STD... WOKE TREK... KURTZMAN IS THE DEVIL~". Truly one of the darkest paths I've ever walked in my life.
News? Stories from Dubious Sources
- Thread starter The Old Mixer
- Start date
I always had a chuckle back in the day whenever some newbie here used the "Jar Jar Abrams" taunt as if they were the first person to ever think of it and thought they were being clever.
IKR? I've even seen "Jar Jar Abrams" being used as a term of endearment by someone praising the Kelvin Trilogy. These immature insults and grift attempts are so over.
Star Trek: Discovery was announced in 2015. Since then we've had five seasons of Discovery, three seasons of Picard, five seasons of Lower Decks, two seasons of Prodigy, three seasons of Strange New Worlds, a bunch of Short Trips, and Section 31. More SNW and Starfleet Academy on the way. And even Scouts. Am I forgetting anything on the TV side?
Meanwhile, Paramount released exactly one Star Trek movie since 2015, despite announcing several others that have amounted to nothing.
If you want to keep people aware of Star Trek over the next few years, do you keep the people who've produced a lot of TV episodes that actually exist, or do you stick with the movie strategy that hasn't produced anything but one movie generally seen as underperforming and a lot of announcements that haven't paid off?
Over the decades, there have been thirteen theatrically released Star Trek movies. Most of them didn't come anywhere near blockbuster status on the level of a Star Wars or MCU movie. Is killing off the TV shows and betting the house on movies really the smart bet?
Meanwhile, Paramount released exactly one Star Trek movie since 2015, despite announcing several others that have amounted to nothing.
If you want to keep people aware of Star Trek over the next few years, do you keep the people who've produced a lot of TV episodes that actually exist, or do you stick with the movie strategy that hasn't produced anything but one movie generally seen as underperforming and a lot of announcements that haven't paid off?
Over the decades, there have been thirteen theatrically released Star Trek movies. Most of them didn't come anywhere near blockbuster status on the level of a Star Wars or MCU movie. Is killing off the TV shows and betting the house on movies really the smart bet?
The smart bet would be to produce one Star Trek tv show, have it be 20 episodes stretched out over a nine month viewing period, and then a three month hiatus until the next season. But that’s not what streaming platforms do, apparently. So instead we’ll get ten episodes of SFA starting from January until March, and then not see season 2 until January 2027 (or later.) This format is simply not sustainable for keeping people’s interest in the show. At this point I’d honestly rather just see a theatrical film every two years. There’s not much difference here.
Admittedly, it might even work better. Sure, people can forget a movie after a couple years, but they are also more likely to carve a couple hours of their week to rewatch the previous film just before a sequel is released than trying to find time to rewatch ten hour long episodes just before the new season premieres.
And then one of these movies underperforms at the box office and two years later there's nothing. Beyond was, for my money, by far the best of the three Kelvin movies. It was seen as a flop, despite doing better at the box office than many of the older Trek movies. Nine years later, still no new movie.
If senior management at Paramount/CBS want to focus on movies, they aren't going to be happy with movies that make the kind of money Insurrection made.
If senior management at Paramount/CBS want to focus on movies, they aren't going to be happy with movies that make the kind of money Insurrection made.
The nuTrek movies underperformed because Paramount was piss-poor in promoting them. So they have nobody to blame for that except themselves. Maybe Skydance will learn that lesson.
Then again, they need to advertise the hell out of them if they want asses in theater seats.
Skydance, of course, was one of the production companies involved in making Star Trek Beyond. Do they get any of the blame?
Yes. Which was why I said that I hope they learn their lesson.
I think that’s part of the overarching problem with the industry now. We’re losing the distinction between tv and movies since both are now being made the same way. TV shows are being thought of as one ungodly long film. Makes everything feel like the same slop.
TVs are different nowadays.
Back in the 80s and 90s, you had standard definition, pan-and-scan TVs with an NTSC analog signal coming through a cathode ray tube. Back then, you could get away with relatively low production values.
That is not the case today.
Today's TVs are digital, 4K, high definition, and widescreen. Audiences are much more demanding today. The cr*p that used to fly in the 80s and 90s won't cut it today (this is to say nothing of streaming services).
4K HD reveals EVERYTHING (scars, flaws, stretch marks ... things that the audience was never intended to see).
Just about all pre-2000 shows were originally filmed and formatted for pan-and-scan.
Example: On one episode of Friends, we see a close-up of Chandler lying awake in bed. Camera pans over to find a woman lying in bed next to Chandler (LaffTrak goes wild). When the same shot is viewed in widescreen, the audience sees the woman before Chandler does. The surprise is lost. The joke falls flat.
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If CBS/Paramount had just focused on one TV show instead of five, gave that TV show a modest budget, and made a 20 episode season stretched out to 9 months out of the year, then I think they would have been more successful. Making five shows with the idea that each one would cater to a specific group of fans, and giving those shows a huge budget, was a mistake. I think that CBS thought that having back-to-back shows would keep everyone's interest enough when one show wasn't aired for a year, but the thing is that fans who like SNW might not necessarily like or watch Prodigy, so there was really no difference with new P+ subscribers.
And to speak to your point: Yes, shows like SNW and SFA look like they have feature film budgets. I'm not sure why this needs to be the case.
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P+ doesn't want to pay for it.
Second-run syndication is dead. There's no point in doing 26 eps per year anymore.
During CBSAA/P+'s heyday, they were making at least 20 episodes a year, if not more, stretched across multiple series.
Thanks, Egon.
Superman isn’t Star Wars either. You know why its still being compared to it? That film is not selling an origins story. They are selling a unique universe were the world is different to our own. That a far stronger base to build a cinematic universe on.
A fourth Kelvinverse movie would not be trying to sell the audience on an origins story. They’d be selling the unique universe that is Star Trek.
It’s unlikely to ever happen. But, even in the hypothetical that it was possible, that’s not even the bet way to return to the Berman-era format.
Start with a 6-part miniseries that runs in the fall. Which are basically extended Long Treks for stories not strong enough to be green lit for a multi-season series, but cannot be limited to a film. I define such stories as: Worf and Jeremy Aster explore the Klingon Empire (giving the Worf show that human aspect it seems to be missing), Rachel Garrett and Quasi feat Young Picard, Beverly Crusher frontier medical drama, Emperor Georgiou’s and Prime Lorca, something Starfleet Academy-adjacent.
Then from January through May, the 20-episode show, which would repurpose sets created for the various miniseries. This would be the 25th century series, which would last five season to get to syndication. And the purpose of aiming for syndication in the face of cord cutting would be for greater visibility beyond what P+ can produce. I’d bet the 25th century series would mash Legacy, a Janeway series and that Tawny Newsome pitch into one.
There. Is. No. More. Syndication.
Syndication is Dead. There is no further place to go.
No. No callbacks to previous series. That’s not how you get new viewers, and even long time fans don’t give a shit about Jeremy Aster.
I think it's important to not learn the wrong lessons from 'Beyond's performance at the box office. It under performed, I believe, because of the reception to 'Into Darkness'. Had THAT been a better movie, 'Beyond' would have performed just fine. I agree that it was the best of the Kelvin movies.
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