No corporation with any brains would allow an important brand, which is what
Star Trek is, out of their control.
Imagine McDonald's allowing some street vender to sell burgers under their name without any quality controls: the meat might be tainted, etc. McDonald's would be insane to do that. The value of their brand is that they maintain control over it, and people know what they're getting when they buy food under that brand.
That is what's made McDonald's a success. Other people certainly can cook better hamburgers! McDonald's gives people a guarantee of what they will get. All brands, including
Star Trek, do this. It is what they exist to
do.
Regardless of whether you think Paramount has been smart in how they've managed the
Star Trek brand, they have managed it. They were never
trying to frak it up by letting Berman and Braga run amok, etc. And now they seem to be trying to turn the brand around and make it more valuable. That's what corporations do. What they don't do is allow their brands to be fucked up by people who aren't on their payroll and aren't under their control.
Or, honestly, even
improved by people who aren't on their payroll. Someone else's idea of improvement might not be
Star Trek, just as someone could whip up a much better burger than a Big Mac, but that product would be of no interest to McDonald's. The issue becomes, what do you mean by "improvement." For what audience/customer base?
Really when I see threads like this, I want everyone to go to business school!
Study marketing and branding, or at least take a class. You don't have to get an MBA. Even if it's not your field, it impacts everyone's life so extensively that everyone should at least have some knowledge of how this stuff works.
Trek universe spans around the entire galaxy. Why not let people with money come up with their own interpretations of Trek universe?
Space-opera ideas are a dime a dozen. The problem is getting funding. So if someone already has funding lined up, why do they need
Star Trek? They could start their own franchise and own it. They wouldn't need to be limited by the preconceptions about what
Star Trek should be (the brand definition). Just call it something else and launch a brand new successful franchise.
The reason Paramount still cares about
Star Trek is because a brand is a shortcut to getting money - the honchos will greenlight a film with a known brand name long before they bother with Joe Blow's Space Opera. But Joe Blow doesn't need the suits, because he's independently wealthy. Let's see what he can do.
I really want to know how these people will handle Trek if they are given the oppotunity.
Jon Favreau
Peter Berg
Paul Verhoeven
Jerry Bruckheimer
Michael Bay
Oliver Stone
The Russian guy who directed Wanted
Neill Blomkamp
Guillermo del Toro
Paramount would still exercise control over the finished product to ensure that their brand was not being mangled. And all those guys would be working for Paramount. A corporation certainly can hire people to produce their product, that's never been an issue. You're talking about people with their own financing and effectively their own company, without any oversight by Paramount, and that is what will never happen.
And...Michael Bay!?!?!
