Because they're "the base."
This movie isn't going to turn a profit on new fans alone. Tick off or alienate your fanbase then your movie is going to fail. It isn't going to win purely on new fans.
Why not just use the pilot design?
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Because they're "the base."
This movie isn't going to turn a profit on new fans alone. Tick off or alienate your fanbase then your movie is going to fail. It isn't going to win purely on new fans.
Then it's a good thing that apparently the movie _isn't_ alienating enough of the fanbase that they won't even _see_ the movie.
And by the time of the sequel, if there is one, "the base" will have to consider that its demographics have been irrevocably altered by the release of this movie.
Trying to inject levity into such a serious conversation? Tsk!
Somebody get a mod in here!
Ironically, I'm a Mod elsewhere who often tries to inject levity into serious conversations...sometimes with less than spectacular results...
Seriously, this is like the Mid-Life Crisis of Star Trek...
Somebody get a mod in here!
Ironically, I'm a Mod elsewhere who often tries to inject levity into serious conversations...sometimes with less than spectacular results...
Seriously, this is like the Mid-Life Crisis of Star Trek...
ST-One
Vice Admiral
That is precisely the point.
Trying to inject levity into such a serious conversation? Tsk!
Somebody get a mod in here!
Uh oh. We are on the way to destruction...
Did somebody set you up a threadbomb?
^The worst-case? Someone found my LiveJournal and spammed _my friends_ by replying to comments they'd left in my LJ with NSFW images. They also spammed the board I was a Moderator on.
Naturally they did this while I was at work and operating under extremely limited internet access.
Naturally they did this while I was at work and operating under extremely limited internet access.
Yes, it is.
You know what the base of Trek fans are? 3 million. That's about how many people were tuning in to ENT at its lowest points in the ratings. So we know that there are around 3 million Trekkies out there who are more or less reliable at even the lowest points of Trek's popularity.
Guess what? This movie is going to need more than 3 million people to be profitable, let alone a hit. Let's say they want numbers akin to Abrams's and Orci's last big hits, Cloverfield and Transformers. If they want Cloverfield numbers, they're going to need to make $80 million; if they want Transformers numbers, they're going to need to make around $319 million. That's all just the domestic grosses.
Let's assume that there's not much repeat viewings and that most theatres are charging around $8 per ticket and that it's in wide release. That means that to reach Cloverfield numbers, they're gonna need to attract around 10 million theatre-goers. To make Transformers numbers, they're going to need to attract almost 40 million theatre-goers.
That means that to make the minimum threshold of success that this creative team has established for itself, they're going to need to attract 7 million more people than can be said to make up the "Trekkie fanbase." They need to attract more than twice as many people as are Trekkies just to meet the minimum threshold of success they've had in the past. To meet the maximum threshold of success, they'll need to attract 37 million more theatre-goers than make up the Trekkie fanbase.
Simply put, they're only going to need the Trekkie fanbase if they can't attract anyone else, and even then, the Trekkie fanbase won't save them. Trekkies can only break this film if it absolutely fails to attract non-Trekkies -- and they can't hurt it if it attracts just a few million more theatre-goers than Cloverfield did. And on top of that, a certain percentage of the fanbase is always going to show up, whether they like it or not, and another percentage is going to like what they see, irrelevant of what people on the Internet say.
Simply put, there aren't enough of us Trekkies to actually make a difference in Star Trek XI's popularity under anything other than a low-turnout scenario for this film, and even then, we aren't unified enough to really hurt or help it. If this film achieves its goal and gets mainstream success, it doesn't matter if every hard-core Trekkie, all 3 million of us, boycott the thing, because it will still attract tens of millions of others.
I do look forward to seeing the world-wide "You Raped Our Childhoods!" protests on CNN on Star Trek's release date, though. I assume they will be at least as entertaining as the movie itself.
Oh, and the court cases that will no doubt be brought against anyone even remotely related to the film.
Er...I hope none of this makes me eligible for subpoena...
Oh, and the court cases that will no doubt be brought against anyone even remotely related to the film.
Er...I hope none of this makes me eligible for subpoena...
No, that's not "true." That's an OPINION. Not a fact.
The only way you could say that it's "true" is to actually put it up there and have the audiences reject it. I don't believe... not for the tiniest fraction of a second... that MOST of the audience would care, so long as they were given a good story. Those of us who will care will, for the most part, like to see the original up there. A few won't... but they're a minority out of a minority, I think.
Not ENTIRELY true. Rather... that's the argument Roddenberry made. Whether or not it's a TRUE argument is entirely unproven.
Personally, I'd love to have had TMP show a only slightly modified version, have it wrecked in TWOK, destroyed in TSFS, and bring in a new and improved version after that. That would have made a lot more sense... and would have been more emotionally satisfying to boot, I think.
And that's, ultimately the real issue. There's no way to reconcile, intellectually, what we're seeing here with what we've known for 40+ years... unless they're either permanently "destroying the original timeline" or they're hitting the cliche'd "reset button" at the end and destroying this movie's changes. Neither is going to go over very well.
I think Gabe's design works wonderfully for a "new ship" or even a far more plausible "TMP-era refit" concept. I had a number of complaints re: it, but he was always open to criticism and he fixed a number of those over time.
My biggest complaint with his ship design was mainly with the dish (which needs to be a parabolic dish... but at least his didn't glow blue!!!) and with his having "over-detailed" the skin with too many pointless "notchy" details... a number of which he did, in fact, tone down eventually. His final version was actually looking pretty good...and I could have accepted it without complaint in this flick (the first version... the overly "borg-ish" version people often refer to... was really his first effort and he refined it significantly over time).
It's clear that Ryan Church borrowed elements from Gabe's design (the "nacelle hoodie" and elements of the neck design, mainly). But all things being equal, I LIKE the Koerner version... I don't care for the Church version, except perhaps as a late-24th-century "tribute" to the Constitution-class?
You're talking presentation, though... not design. And that's the 3-foot model (see David Shaw's prints in the Trek Art forum) which is different from the 11' version. Which I know you already knew.This is the pilot Enterprise:
I like how it's shiny yet devoid of detail. That should translate well to the big screen.
Guys... if you're going to argue against the original, you don't need to use the worst-possible images to support that argument. I could post a picture of the "Dinky Toys" version of the Refit 1701 to support an argument that it sucked, if I wanted to make that argument... but that would be no more or less valid of an argument than this one is, would it be?
The DESIGN is sound. Nobody's arguing that the original 3' model or even the 11' model should have been used. Nor even that the design couldn't see some additional "polishing," provided that the design itself was left more or less unchanged.
Yeah, use a picture of the real filming models:
http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/10/startrekphone.jpg
http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/08/star-trek-chandelier.jpg
http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/enterprise-bottle_opener.jpg
http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/startrekputter.jpg
And not a reason in the world that they couldn't have used that design, as is.
The filming model is currently in the Smithsonian, and is therefore unavailable.
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