Do people under 40 care about Star Trek?

[ananta]

Interesting.

Perhaps anecdotal, but being around my teens and their friends I have a different perspective. The teens are far more interested in a mix of things, and get in to older media as newer. There's a growing appreciation for things like vinyl records, or older shows that creates a different attitude.

Not been my experience but I’m glad to hear this, it’s too easy to lump a “generation” together. I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.

Why are you only bringing up DISCO and S31? Did you know there were other shows that not only energized the fan base but brought in new fans like LOWER DECKS and STRANGE NEW WORLDS? In fact, the latter already cracked the top ten most watched shows during S2 on the Nielsen streaming rankings. That ain’t nothing.

From my perspective, DSC and s31 were more explicitly aimed at bringing in new viewers. Most of the other new shows, Picard, SNW and LDS seemed to be designed to appeal to existing fans and, in the case of SNW, were a product of fan feedback. SNW may be a good jumping in point, it’s good if ratings suggest it has been. Hadn’t really thought about that. LDS is so chock full of past Trek references, I’m honestly not sure how accessible it was for complete newbies. I’d be interested to know if it managed to attract non-fans.

I’m sure CBS must have data breakdowns of just who watched what and the percentages of existing fans vs new viewers. I’d be fascinated to see data like that, but it would never be released to the public I don’t think.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

LDS is so chock full of past Trek references, I’m honestly not sure how accessible it was for complete newbies. I’d be interested to know if it managed to attract non-fans.

I thought the same when it first came out in 2020, that it would be too insular for the references, but it turned out new fans were made because of that show. I can attest to that because my roommate was not a Star Trek fan but for whatever reason wanted to watch LDS and absolutely loved it. Enough that after S2 she wanted to watch TOS together, then we watched all two seasons of SNW, and are currently on TNG.

It just goes to show that LDS was much more than just references, it still had characters and stories you could follow and enjoy. My roommate talked about how fun it’ll be for her to revisit the show once she’s seen the rest of Trek so all those references will hit.

But I still agree with above that if Paramount truly wants to broaden their audience they should make a deal to license the past Trek seasons with Netflix. It not only gives Netflix more viewers but will give those viewers incentive to see the latest seasons of Trek during P+’s exclusivity window.

 

[ananta]

I thought the same when it first came out in 2020, that it would be too insular for the references, but it turned out new fans were made because of that show. I can attest to that because my roommate was not a Star Trek fan but for whatever reason wanted to watch LDS and absolutely loved it. Enough that after S2 she wanted to watch TOS together, then we watched all two seasons of SNW, and are currently on TNG.

That is really cool to hear! I wasn’t a fan of LDS myself, just not my style, but I’m happy to hear that it brought in some new fans. Sadly I’ve never been able to “convert” anyone to Trek, it must feel mighty satisfying!

 

[TheAdmiralty]

I think the number of people interested in Trek SHARPLY diminishes by generation.

I wouldn't say "sharply". Gen X and Boomers are about even and still plenty of Millennial Trek fans. There is a major drop off with Gen Z though

 

[Tribblesonmars]

I'm younger than 40 and love star trek. It was introduced to me by my dad with next generation, which I loved, and now I'm rapidly going through the original series. I'm probably not very representative of 'most people' though so I don't know about generally.

 

[Steve Roby]

I'm 62. The world has changed. It's not just Star Trek that's affected. I have a niece in university who gets really into certain TV shows or movies or bands and buys videos, reads books about them, gets seriously into them. I can relate to her. A lot of her friends find it kind of weird that she does that. They like certain things, but media is just one big soup you can randomly experience, there's no special significance to much of it, it's just entertainment, and it's all out there for the taking.

Sometimes I'm at a certain local craft brewery/restaurant and, if the owners aren't around, I'm sometimes the oldest person there by a good 30 or 35 years. On the bar stereo, there's Devo, the Clash, Joy Division, the Smiths, the Cure... bands I listened to forty years ago. I didn't spend a lot of time listening to the Andrews Sisters when I was in my 20s. But the Internet has changed the availability of everything and that's changed how young people experience pop culture compared to how I did. That's inevitably going to change how fandom plays out. When there's only one Star Trek series and if you miss it this week you may have to wait six months for a rerun, you're not dealing with the same reality as someone who has several hundred episodes of over a dozen Star Trek shows any time they want to see them. It's a different world.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Trek is just 50 episodes away from reaching a total of 1000 episodes for the entire franchise, including the movies.

 

[DarthTimon]

I am turning 50 this November. Grew up watching TNG and then continued watching DS9 and Voyager.

My wife's parents grew up with TOS. Sadly, that generation is getting older and older.

The Trekkies I personally know are all around my age or older. When I think of co-workers in 30's or 20's none of them know anything about Star Trek.

I know Pauramount is trying to get younger viewers. Prodigy was an amazing show but it mainly seemed to be watched by people like me. Section 31 tried to get people in 20's and 30's but that movie sucked and wasn't real Trek. Now they are trying to get the young adult audience with Academy. That was a show I was nervous about at first, but am excited about now. But Paramount dont care about 50 year olds like me.

Just worried about future of Star Trek.

A good post.

The trouble for Star Trek is that isn't trendy. It isn't cool. Whereas say, Star Wars keeps up an impression in the public eye, Star Trek maybe doesn't? It's a shame, because Star Trek is so often topical, and pertinent to the times (mind you, Andor proved Star Wars can inhabit that space too). I think a lot of younger people see Trek as a lot more geeky than Wars, and therefore don't want to watch it/associate with it.

What this means for the future, I cannot say.

 

[Steve Roby]

The trouble for Star Trek is that isn't trendy. It isn't cool. Whereas say, Star Wars keeps up an impression in the public eye, Star Trek maybe doesn't? It's a shame, because Star Trek is so often topical, and pertinent to the times (mind you, Andor proved Star Wars can inhabit that space too). I think a lot of younger people see Trek as a lot more geeky than Wars, and therefore don't want to watch it/associate with it.

For a long time, there wasn't very much Star Wars. There's always been a lot of Star Trek. For the first twenty or thirty years or so of Star Wars, all you had to do was watch a movie every three years, and you had a sixteen-year break in the middle. So every Star Wars movie was a big pop culture event, making it not exactly trendy but very popular in the mainstream. But also important was that there was so little to keep up with. Anyone can manage to see six movies in thirty years. You don't even have to consider yourself a fan.

From the time Star Wars came out in 1977 to the time Revenge of the Sith came out, Star Trek had ten movies, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. That's not a casual commitment compared to Star Wars. To watch all those hundreds of stories, you have to invest a lot more of your time. You have to care. And caring to that extent -- hundreds of episodes and movies -- is seen as nerdy. Or geeky.

When I got into Doctor Who there was already 26 years of TV episodes, a TV movie, dozens of novels, and the Big Finish audios had started. I jumped right in intending to catch up with as much of that as possible. That's not normal. Normal people don't do that. Fans do that. Fans are nerds. You don't have to be a nerd to like Star Wars, unless you get into all the TV series, books, comics, etc, and most people who'll watch a Star Wars movie don't do all that other stuff.

 

[fireproof78]

A good post.

The trouble for Star Trek is that isn't trendy. It isn't cool. Whereas say, Star Wars keeps up an impression in the public eye, Star Trek maybe doesn't? It's a shame, because Star Trek is so often topical, and pertinent to the times (mind you, Andor proved Star Wars can inhabit that space too). I think a lot of younger people see Trek as a lot more geeky than Wars, and therefore don't want to watch it/associate with it.

What this means for the future, I cannot say.

Trek has rarely been trendy even when topical, which it rarely did well.

The way to try to assist with awareness is to utilize it in the public sphere.

 

[drt]

That said, would having it come out sooner in 2011 or 2012 make a difference? Maybe. That depends on a lot of factors. It picks up the momentum but it would also need to be a really good sequel on the level of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, THE DARK KNIGHT, or hell WRATH OF KHAN to really solidify the Kelvin films. Instead we got INTO DARKNESS.

When I saw Into Darkness on opening weekend, it was an event movie featuring a packed crowd that was largely under thirty, but three years later there were maybe a dozen people in the theater at the opening to see Beyond. So everything else remaining equivalent, it seems releasing a second movie in 2013 vs 2011 probably wouldn't have made a difference long-term, we'd just have four Kelvin movies instead of three.

 

[korblborp]

For a long time, there wasn't very much Star Wars. There's always been a lot of Star Trek. For the first twenty or thirty years or so of Star Wars, all you had to do was watch a movie every three years

this is just blatantly incorrect, and it's weird how many people just act like there was nothing between the movies. there were *tons* of comics, novels, toys, and games. imo, the surge of star wars content in the late 80s/early 90s giving it an energy boost is the only reason that lucas got to do the SEs and later the prequels, and it kept going *past* that, long past. past the buyout, even, almost until TFA came out. i get this weird sense that for some reason to a lot of people none of it counted until Disney did it, after throwing all of it in the wastebin so as not to be "limited" by it (and then just ripping off half of it anyway).

 

[Steve Roby]

this is just blatantly incorrect, and it's weird how many people just act like there was nothing between the movies. there were *tons* of comics, novels, toys, and games.

All of that is great for dedicated fans. The majority of people who see a Star Wars movie (or, for that matter, a Star Trek episode) don't care about any of that stuff.

Edit: we're talking at this point about why, in the mainstream of society, Star Wars is popular and Star Trek is nerdy. If you've played Dark Forces and read Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire, you've moved from mainstream public opinion to nerdity and aren't really what we're talking about here.

 

[korblborp]

All of that is great for dedicated fans. The majority of people who see a Star Wars movie (or, for that matter, a Star Trek episode) don't care about any of that stuff

not caring about and choosing to ignore a good chunk (even the bulk) of content available for a thing is not the same as there wasn't very much

 

[Steve Roby]

For nerds, there was a lot. For the average person watching Star Wars movies, there wasn't.

 

[FredH]

But also important was that there was so little to keep up with. Anyone can manage to see six movies in thirty years. You don't even have to consider yourself a fan.

I wonder if what would help would be a show that harkened back to the structure of TOS, without ever referring to it: an episodic show about a starship exploring new worlds (but with larger-than-life characters), keeping to traditional Trek values but, while not technically breaking with Trek canon, simply never mentioning any of it at all. Such that for all intents and purposes, it would just be a show about “a starship exploring new worlds” — and NOT about Star Trek itself, as they usually end up becoming. No legacy guests, no crossovers, definitely no filling in old continuity gaps, preferably no Threats To The Federation. Ideally in the 32nd or 33rd century, but it doesn’t really matter. Just the ship, the cast and the planet of the week.

 

[Steve Roby]

Some people argued that this was sort of what The Orville was doing, but the crass humour in it really detracted from the Star Trek feel for me. Too many of the characters were played as buffoons early on for me to buy them as believable characters in more serious episodes. And it looked and felt much more like TNG than TOS in many ways.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Orville's humor is primarily in the first season and was forced in there by Fox, who basically wanted the show to be Family Guy in space. By the third season when the show moved to Hulu, the humor was scaled back a lot and was more in line with being the kind of show Seth MacFarlane always wanted it to be.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I finally watched the Orville after I heard that the humor had been scaled back and enjoyed it well enough, but I don't consider it to be comparable to any Star Trek.

Initially, after the show's first two attempts at humor were the equivalent of a cumshot and a spit take, I decided that the show wasn't for me.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I wonder if what would help would be a show that harkened back to the structure of TOS, without ever referring to it: an episodic show about a starship exploring new worlds (but with larger-than-life characters), keeping to traditional Trek values but, while not technically breaking with Trek canon, simply never mentioning any of it at all. Such that for all intents and purposes, it would just be a show about “a starship exploring new worlds” — and NOT about Star Trek itself, as they usually end up becoming. No legacy guests, no crossovers, definitely no filling in old continuity gaps, preferably no Threats To The Federation. Ideally in the 32nd or 33rd century, but it doesn’t really matter. Just the ship, the cast and the planet of the week.

TNG mostly stayed clear of TOS references, crossovers and guests and it was a big success.

DS9 loved bringing characters back and building on TNG continuity, and that did just fine as well.

It seems to me that the trick is to write stories under the assumption that your audience hasn't seen and doesn't care about anything made before 5 or 10 years ago. Make sure no one feels alienated and everyone is able to appreciate the big emotional moments, shocking reveals and jokes, not just veteran fans.

But I also think that the writers should be giving new viewers reasons to care about things from before 5 or 10 years ago, because then they've made some committed Star Trek fans who are going to stick around and check out older stories. There must be people who saw Kor in DS9 and decided to check out Errand of Mercy, or who decided to watch Voyager because of Hologram Janeway in Prodigy.