Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?

[TREK_GOD_1]

Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?

The current state of the franchise (and how it was headed this way for the past few years) speaks for itself.

Do you know of anyone post current PTB--producer, writer--anyone--who would take Star Trek back to a place of entertainment / cultural relevance?

 

[BillJ]

Do you know of anyone post current PTB--producer, writer--anyone--who would take Star Trek back to a place of entertainment / cultural relevance?

I doubt anyone had Harve Bennett or Nick Meyer on their bingo cards in 1980.

If someone “saves” Star Trek, they’ll likely come out of left field.

 

[Dar70]

The current state of the franchise (and how it was headed this way for the past few years) speaks for itself.

Do you know of anyone post current PTB--producer, writer--anyone--who would take Star Trek back to a place of entertainment / cultural relevance?

I don't know. But I know how I would have done a Pike show and a show like Discovery or even SFA. As I have said before Disco did finally start to improve the last season and a half. SNW has really gotten bad the last couple of seasons SFA sadly just was not all that well written.

I'm not a writer but I have generally ideas of how I think they should have done it. But i think it's too late now for them to right the ship.

I'm just happy I have a lot of Trek that i do like and I will revisit all of it until the day I die. So probably at least two more rewatches.

 

[fireproof78]

I doubt anyone had Harve Bennett or Nick Meyer on their bingo cards in 1980.

If someone “saves” Star Trek, they’ll likely come out of left field.

Exactly.

If the stated goal is to "save Star Trek" then they will fail because there's no good definition of what success looks like. There's intense disagreement about "good Star Trek" and requirements for the savior are profoundly contradictory: a fan who doesn't dwell on too much nostalgia. They should reference past events but make it accessible to new audiences. The characters should be relatable but still evolved humanity in some way while commenting on the social problems.

Good luck.

 

[Rincewiend]

That really amounts to less than you'd think. I've seen about 1,500 movies and read a similar number of books, along with significant parts of at least another five or six hundred of each.

As the amount of quality new material has decreased*, I've found myself beginning to run out of great older works. If you pick any genre, the actual classics turn out to be thin on the ground.

*Because of problems with the ecosystem of production, not a decline in human creativity.

Classics? I want to be entertained...
That's why i read the Discworld series or watched M*A*S*H...

 

[Firebird]

How many people ever come close to exhausting what’s available? I’d wager the answer is quite small.

Largely owing to the nature of my work (historian), and my age (nearly 60), I’ve read several thousand books in their entirety and consulted parts of several thousand more (have 1000s in my house), and have seen several thousand films (partly for my MA thesis years ago and partly because I love film). And I am still only barely scratching the surface of what is available. I’m not sure how anyone can run out of options.

Hell, I've got a movie collection that's crested over three thousand titles, and I'm still finding new-to-me stuff every single week, whether it's from the 20th or 21st centuries.

 

[fireproof78]

But I know how I would have done a Pike show and a show like Discovery or even SFA

So do I.


That it wasn't done to my imagination is the feature of diversity of creativity.

 

[Starflight]

Do you know of anyone post current PTB--producer, writer--anyone--who would take Star Trek back to a place of entertainment / cultural relevance?

Gene Coon was, afaik, a jobbing writer who wrote for Westerns, and Dorothy Fontana was much the same, who started writing for Star Trek after working as a secretary.

I suppose the problem is that the circumstances that allow two relative-nobodies like that to suddenly be writing a science fiction series don't tend to be replicated in the modern day. The current pipeline seems to lean more toward producing people who can be relied on to make a certain type of thing, and showrunner control is tighter.

 

[Campe]

Could it also be that perhaps with around 1000 hours of Star Trek and the idea that quality is subjective that expectations of the fan base are impossible to meet?

Perhaps?

 

[Starflight]

Could it also be that perhaps with around 1000 hours of Star Trek and the idea that quality is subjective that expectations of the fan base are impossible to meet?

People generally reacted positively to SNW at first and there was substantial enthusiasm for it, so possibly not as much as we might think.

 

[Campe]

People generally reacted positively to SNW at first and there was substantial enthusiasm for it, so possibly not as much as we might think.

Generally, sure, but not everyone loved it. Just like not everyone loved Picard season 3. There were large swaths that loved either. (Some might even have loved both.) But universal acclaim among Trek fans? Never gonna happen. And that’s okay. Our differences are what make us unique. After all, we’re not a monolith.

 

[Cicero]

How many people ever come close to exhausting what’s available? I’d wager the answer is quite small.

Everything that's available and everything that one personally might want to consume are very different lists (aside from knowledge acquisition, which I think is different from the original poster's intent).

Largely owing to the nature of my work (historian), and my age (nearly 60), I’ve read several thousand books in their entirety and consulted parts of several thousand more (have 1000s in my house), and have seen several thousand films (partly for my MA thesis years ago and partly because I love film). And I am still only barely scratching the surface of what is available. I’m not sure how anyone can run out of options.

Non-fiction (or appreciation of a medium) significantly expands the possibilities, but the actual depth of any single type of fiction available is much shallower than it seems.

Honestly, the same is probably true of non-fiction, but there's usually some new information or perspective to be found even in the bad works.

(I think I'm about twenty years behind you, though I thought I'd read and watched more until I made a list a few years ago.)

Classics? I want to be entertained...
That's why i read the Discworld series or watched M*A*S*H...

I meant that in the sense of the best in the genre. For example, Terminator 2, True Lies, The Rock, etc. for action films.

Hell, I've got a movie collection that's crested over three thousand titles, and I'm still finding new-to-me stuff every single week, whether it's from the 20th or 21st centuries.

As a movie viewer, I have the tastes of a fan of illustration and theater, so I don't think I value the same things in film that most cinephiles do. (I'm also generally less interested in the medium than in the message.)

 

[BillJ]

After all, we’re not a monolith.

We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.

 

[Cicero]

Could it also be that perhaps with around 1000 hours of Star Trek and the idea that quality is subjective that expectations of the fan base are impossible to meet?

Perhaps?

I think either the TNG fanbase or TOS fanbase has to give. It's probably not possible to meet both of their expectations.

But I don't think the size of the existing franchise is a problem in terms of exhaustion. It's a bigger issue that the last 500 or so episodes of television have mostly been bad.

Quantity, though, does act as a deterrent to new viewers (I spoke to a young movie fan the other day who'd avoided Star Trek because "there's just so much of it").

So do I.


That it wasn't done to my imagination is the feature of diversity of creativity.

I can't speak to your imagination in particular, but that it was done the way it was is a feature of incompetence.

 

[Campe]

We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.

Speak for yourself…ves.

It's a bigger issue that the last 500 or so episodes of television have mostly been bad.

Again, quality is highly subjective.

Quantity, though, does act as a deterrent to new viewers (I spoke to a young movie fan the other day who'd avoided Star Trek because "there's just so much of it").

Absolutely agree on that point. Growing up while TNG was first run, it even took me a long time to go back to watch all of TOS. Took me until the 2-episode DVDs came out to see every last episode. Partially because it wasn’t always as accessible to watch the ones I hadn’t seen but also because 79 episodes of a 30-year old show could be daunting for a teenager when there were other things of interest in the world (video games, extracurriculars, girls).

 

[fireproof78]

but that it was done the way it was is a feature of incompetence

Ok. I wouldn't mind being paid that way to be incompetent.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

After all, we’re not a monolith.

We're a Preserver deflector obelisk!

 

[Shawnster]

People who need something to move on to are welcome to come help me plant my garden.

Would this be in the same way people helped Huck Finn paint a fence?

 

[fireproof78]

Would this be in the same way people helped Huck Finn paint a fence?

Given I planted two flats of 72 pepper plant starts yesterday so...no.

 

[Starflight]

I think either the TNG fanbase or TOS fanbase has to give. It's probably not possible to meet both of their expectations.

This is interesting and I think you're right, but at the same time, you can sort of see a middle ground that might please many fans of both. TNG's reputation has hardened into pretentious speeches and procedural institutionalism, but more often than not it was very TOS-adjacent adventure stuff, albeit often with a restrained tone.

Generally, sure, but not everyone loved it. Just like not everyone loved Picard season 3. There were large swaths that loved either. (Some might even have loved both.) But universal acclaim among Trek fans? Never gonna happen. And that’s okay. Our differences are what make us unique. After all, we’re not a monolith.

Universal acclaim is impossible, but it can definitely appeal to more viewers - old and new - than the streaming-era stuff ultimately seems to have done on the whole.