I think the larger issue here - and Allyn points to it pretty clearly - is that Abrams came to understand through this frustrating process that shortsighted corporate turf wars were going to prevent growing Star Trek to its potential. Why should someone who has so many opportunities bust his ass for a retrograde corporation that doesn't get it when he's being offered a far more attractive situation, one which is apparently open to all the ideas he had for Trek, with Disney and Star Wars?
Thanks for screwing Star Trek, CBS...
- Thread starter Admiral Buzzkill
- Start date
Something about this article simply doesn't feel "right".
Bad Robot had this "Grand Vision" yet they and Paramount couldn't come up with $20 million a year to cover CBS' potential losses in revenue? It sounds like they were asking CBS to take all the risk here. Their plan doesn't work, they're out the money they put into it, but CBS has essentially shut down something that has made them money for years and are left trying to clean up after Bad Robot has moved onto other things.
Bad Robot had this "Grand Vision" yet they and Paramount couldn't come up with $20 million a year to cover CBS' potential losses in revenue? It sounds like they were asking CBS to take all the risk here. Their plan doesn't work, they're out the money they put into it, but CBS has essentially shut down something that has made them money for years and are left trying to clean up after Bad Robot has moved onto other things.
Aside from DVDS or Blu Rays, the only TOS or TNG merchandise that I can find currently being sold is done though online or niche retailers only. It's pretty much only catering to old fans. I don't see how one could argue that its stealing shelf space or competing with JJ Trek stuff at all.
It seems pretty bombastic that Bad Robot would say to them, hey stop making this stuff.
I simply don't buy Bad Robot's "market research" that audiences are too stupid to tell Pine/Quinto apart from Shatner/Nimoy.
Maybe they want to eliminate classic Trek so reluctant fans have no alternatives.
Or maybe they simply should've been more worried about competing with Iron Man and Gears of War?
It seems like they made a stand based on something that very few people even buy to begin with...
Or maybe they simply should've been more worried about competing with Iron Man and Gears of War?
It seems like they made a stand based on something that very few people even buy to begin with...
I think once Star Wars became a possibility, Abrams was not going to pass it up. So he was going to go there anyway.
Okay, don't.
I would say more that CBS' "market research" would say audiences were too dumb to distinguish them apart.
It just seems more a corporation like CBS (who would rather show more seasons of "Two and a Half Men" and the umpteenth version of "Survivor") to have such an incredibly dumb viewpoint.
It just seems more a corporation like CBS (who would rather show more seasons of "Two and a Half Men" and the umpteenth version of "Survivor") to have such an incredibly dumb viewpoint.
It's so devious, that must be the plan. No wait, maybe the plan is that most people aren't fans like we are, they're just going to go shopping for something 'Trek and if they see something with the logo "Star Trek" and the name "Kirk" or "Spock" they're going to buy it without giving two fucks who the product looks like.
What CBS doesn't want is that money going into Paramount/Bad Robot's pockets. They have--basically--no game plan with Classic Trek beyond: Rerelease, rerelease, rerelease. And they're worried that someone else could make more/do better than they can.
First Contact Borg Bubblebath, that's when I said "fuck it" for anything other than books, comics, CDs, and/or DVDS. And truth to tell, I got out of DVD's once I got an I-tunes account and a high-speed connection.
Sounds to me like they wanted to make sure they continued to collect their $20 million dollars a year in licensing should Bad Robot's plans not work out and they've shut down their internal licensing of Star Trek.
This "Grand Vision" likely would've happened if Paramount/Bad Robot had been willing to guarantee that revenue over 'x' amount of years.
Sorry, forgot to remove my tinfoil hat.
For now anyway, it's a easy 20 million. Just release a few more Enterprise pizza-cutters and Bird Of Prey cork-screws.
I'm not really sure whether it was the right or wrong move by CBS. But if I'm collecting $20 million a year and someone tells me that they might be able to turn it into $40 million but the downside is that I might end up with far less. I'd be leery of the proposition.
But either way, I don't think the continued existence of TOS toys and novels would've damaged Abrams "Grand Vision". That's the part I'm calling "bullshit" on.
How many more years do those dingbats think they can hawk tchotchkes with Shatner's mug on them to the tune of 20 million dollars a year? Contrary to the notion some folks have that TOS Is Forever, the generation that makes up the dependable core group of consumers for that stuff is dwindling...and beginning to die.
If a business like that doesn't adjust to a changing market, grow and take some chances on future products their competitors eat their lunch.
I guarantee you that a certain number of idiots will read this whole thing as "That arrogant SOB Jar Jar Abrams wants to take away my right to buy Leonard Nimoy pajamas! Wah!"
And then, however irrationally, at some point Rick Berman's name will be dragged into it.
To further back up the point you've made, Admiral Buzzkill; I'm in my mid-40s, and have been a longtime fan of Star Trek (was born in 1968, began to see TOS in the early to mid 70's at the age of five, have seen all of the other shows, as well as the movies), but I might not be here forever (I also have a chronic illness.) The only young fans that CBS is catering to with this shitty business are the (very) few teens and young adults who like the previous epoch; beside them and most of the older Star Trek fans, that's it-I don't know myself of any other younger fans who like the previous epoch beyond playing Star Trek: Online and maybe seeing the movies/TV shows once in a while on TV and DVD.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; the franchise has to be taken out of the hands of CBS and put back into the hands of Paramount-I don't give a rat's ass about corporate ownership laws, most of them (as devised by the GOP and the Dems) are bullshit anyway! Unless this is done, Star Trek will be dead, with only the occasional resurrection by some fans on the Internet.
It wouldn't off. How many different versions of Star Wars toys and tie-ins are out there at any given moment? The only danger is that there isn't enough interest in Star Trek between movies to support a major market push. And the fault behind that is a lack of a live-action or Animated series to support the product lines when there's no movie out.
The only thing is that when we did have both new Trek shows and movies going on at the same time, public interest in Trek went down...
Even now with interest up, I wouldn't call it enough to support a be tie-in line of products. We don't have a "TNG type show" on TV right now: a Trek series that was/is able to draw in the average viewer as well as hardcore fans.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
What is it they used to say in the olden days when somebody wanted to put down guys of Arab descent? The reason they desperate crave virgins is that they dread comparison.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Interesting if true. Is this HIGHLANDER's 'there can be only one' in treksville?
More on point, it is a business model that depends on suppression - not of the earlier programs but of their commercial visibility in other forms elsewhere. Not exactly the same thing, but I remember reading that when comic writer John Byrne took over SUPERMAN, he insisted they start numbering his at #1 as if there hadn't been a SUPERMAN in the previous 40-odd years. That doesn't take the old ones off collector tables, but it does give a more than superficial impression of all that had gone before now being considered no more than yesterday's news.
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