Honestly, there aren't enough purists to make the franchise profitable anymore. May I remind everyone that Star Trek is, first, a business. I'm sorry. I like Star Trek too and even though I get a little annoyed with the overmoralizing that it can do on occasion, I do miss the thoughtfulness of it all. But CBS and Paramount aren't in this game to make thoughtful, insightful Star Trek. They're in it to make money. For themselves. And their shareholders. Anything else is secondary.
Between Insurrection, Nemesis, Voyager and Enterprise, the audience just wasn't all that interested anymore. Purists were even pulling away. Call it oversaturation. Call it a decline in quality. But even Star Trek fans stopped watching. When your last film loses 40% of the audience from the previous movie, that is not a good sign. When you have a downward trend, like you had since TNG went off the air, eventually it's going to become unprofitable. That's what happened with Star Trek. If fans wanted it to keep going, they could have kept watching.
Love them or hate them, the JJ films brought people to the movie theater. Will Beyond continue that trend? I don't know. I'd like to think that it will. But the audience has to show that there is a desire out there for new Star Trek. And at the end of the day, they're not going to care about what fan films do. Because despite what Alec Peters says, he does not represent all of us. Some, I'd argue most, of us don't want Axanar. We don't want a Mary Stu who is invincible and can do no wrong. We want a hero with character flaws. We want serious moral stories. And yeah, maybe a phaser fight or two. But unfortunately, I think its necessary to see the JJ films in order to get the other stuff. Because Paramount and CBS are watching us. And if we're not watching them, well then, there may not be any Star Trek. CBS is well within its rights to take its ball and go home.
And I also argue that about half of the Prime movies don't hold up if you look at them critically too. Just sayin'.
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