SHEEEESH. I hope not.
"Sexing up" the franchise is going to end up killing it...just to pander to today's stupider, short-attention-span audience.
Like it or not, that audience is the one who will be paying Paramount's bills. Unfortunately, that leaves us out of the loop. This is why we got those stupid-looking Transformers in the Transformers movie.
Okay--you've just provided an excellent example of the movie-goer vs fan situation. I did not see Transformers in the cinema, but I did rent it and (later) bought it. The only thing I knew about Transformers (almost all from a former student who was a BIG fan) was a vague notion there was some war across space between two robot factions that made its way to Earth and the robots (as per their name) "transformed"--into vehicles (I remember the commercials for the cartoon and the toys back in the day). I had NO idea what a proper "Optimus Prime" or any of the other robots were supposed to be like. To me, if they could "transform" from vehicles to robots, that's all that was necessary. I found it entertaining (and visually spectacular so that I purchased a hi-def copy) in an escapist, summer popcorn movie kind of way. So did (over the gnashing of many hardcore fans' teeth, apparently) a lot of other people judging by the box office returns.
This is EXACTLY what Paramount hopes to do with the new Trek movie. Transformers is the model to which they aspire. Anyone who thought otherwise was engaging in, at best, wishful thinking.
HOW the new production team chose to proceed (while attempting to mimic the Transformers phenomenon, in kind if not in scale as far as expectations go) is immaterial to the goal. The goal is to generate buzz, excitement and SALES.
If the makers of Transformers had tried to primarily "please the existing fans", it would have been doomed to financial failure. Same goes for Trek. Obviously, in each case, the filmmakers hope their efforts are appreciated by "existing fans" (and, to a significant degree, they are) but they could not make "existing fans" the primary target audience if their goal was to maximize ticket sales.
While I'm an "existing fan" of Trek (albeit one who feels little trepidation with regards to the new movie), I am not an "existing fan" of Transformers. As such, I was part of the target audience for Transformers and people who have a similar "lack of attachment" to Trek are the target audience. In each case, the hard core "purists" were always bound to be disappointed. Such is the way of the world.
Not another Superman II stunt.
