Did the Reboot Movies Bring in New Fans?

[VulcanMindBlown]

One of my friends from church began watching Star Trek after Star Trek: XI (2009).

Do you know anyone, preferably real life, who started watching Star Trek because of them?

 

[Cyrus]

No

 

[Astra]

*raises hand* Guilty as charged.

When the first movie ran in the TV, I switched it off after 10 minutes, having no idea what was going on. I don't like being thrown right into the action. I didn't even know that the Kirk was not THE Kirk.

With the second movie, I basically only watched the Benedict Cumberbatch scenes, which left me equally confused.

Then I decided to do this properly and start at the beginning. Fell in love with TOS within the first 5 minutes and here I am, one year later and out of several hundreds Euros for every action figure I could find.

As an explanation, I grew up in Eastern Germany, we did not have TOS on our TV screens back then, and later I always was under the impression that it was too late now. Boy, was I wrong.

I am just glad that I have come just in time for the big 50th anniversary.

So, with the third movie, I went to the cinema on the first evening possible, and enjoyed myself immensely.

 

[Malaika]

Absolutely ; I know a lot of people who didn't like trek but liked the movies, some even went back to the series and liked it too

From what I see in places like Tumblr, livejournal and Facebook the fans who like these movies are mostly new people (or relatively new in the sense they started to be fans of the series too after watching the first movie). A big part of their audience.

 

[Tosk]

Friend of mine saw ST11 first, then went on to watch and enjoy most of the rest of Trek. (They skipped TOS, TAS and some chunks of VOY.)

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I think so.

The crowd I've watched these reboot films with seem to be people who are casually aware of Trek or familiar with primarily the reboot films.

 

[Shadowknight1]

I took my sister and a group of friends(one of whom was overexposed to TOS as a kid and hated Trek because of it) at separate times to see Star Trek in 2009 and they all loved it. My sister hasn't missed a movie since.

 

[The Wormhole]

A former co-worker who was not a Trek fan in at all saw Trek XI and enjoyed it. I don't know if he saw the others though. And truth is the movie's main draw for him is that he has a thing for Zoe Saldana.

 

[M-Red]

Definitely.

I know several myself, both friends and family members. In '09, I was fielding so many questions, I created a Trek viewing syllabus that I gave them. For instance, they had to watch "Space Seed" before TWOK, "Journey to Babel" before TSFS, and so on...

Every single one of them said they liked the TV shows I assigned more than the movies.

 

[Shadowknight1]

Definitely.

I know several myself, both friends and family members. In '09, I was fielding so many questions, I created a Trek viewing syllabus that I gave them. For instance, they had to watch "Space Seed" before TWOK, "Journey to Babel" before TSFS, and so on...

Every single one of them said they liked the TV shows I assigned more than the movies.

"Space Seed" is a much better story than TWOK. Mainly because Khan is best when he's smooth and manipulative rather than a raging maniac.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Did it bring in fans? Of course.

Did it bring in enough fans? Probably not.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I've seen several comments here and on Facebook from Trekkies who became fans thanks to ST'09

 

[johnjm22]

All iterations of Trek have brought in new fans.

 

[PixelMagic]

Even TAS?

 

[SpaceLama]

I know people who liked the movies.

But I don't know anyone who became a fan and watched the series.

I hope that at least some did.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The second time I went see STB, there was a couple behind me who were obviously on their first date. I'm not usually, to eavesdrop, but I was there by myself and they were talking pretty loudly before the film started. Anyway, the young woman made it pretty clear she didn't know or had ever seen Star Trek before. But she laughed in all the right spots and clapped when it was over.

Also--and take this for what you will--the guy did ask her about Star Wars and she said she loved Star Wars. She also said she liked the prequels better. Poor guy, I could actually hear him wheeze in agony a little.

 

[Dales]

it brought in new fans but paramount maybe failed to hold unto them.

After the sucess , popularity and critical acclaim of trek 09 paramount should have done more to keep people's interest.

1, they should have made a cartoon series of the trek 09 timeline to fill in the gap between the films.

2, constantly released novels and merchandising of the trek 09 timeline

3, Taped into the social media generation to attract more young people to the series .

But they did nothing after trek 09 in addition to waiting for 4 years to get STID out and by then people lost interest with more addition to how divisive STID became to fans and in the press.

 

[USS Firefly]

The second time I went see STB, there was a couple behind me who were obviously on their first date. I'm not usually, to eavesdrop, but I was there by myself and they were talking pretty loudly before the film started. Anyway, the young woman made it pretty clear she didn't know or had ever seen Star Trek before. But she laughed in all the right spots and clapped when it was over.

Also--and take this for what you will--the guy did ask her about Star Wars and she said she loved Star Wars. She also said she liked the prequels better. Poor guy, I could actually hear him wheeze in agony a little.

I asume you advice him to dump his date?
The prequels are better than TFA, but better than the original?

 

[SPCTRE]

Short answer is "yes".

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to that effect, which was the question posed in the OP. The interesting question beyond that is of course the attach rate with new Trek consumers, which I'd love to see some numbers on.

 

[donners22]

Yep, the Trek subreddit has had many posts from people who have just watched one of the new films and want to know where to start on the rest of Trek.