I prefer the Prime Universe hands down. Taken in its entirety, it offered a marvelous blend of drama, action , humour, and sometimes, thought provoking philosophizing. There certainly were failures of execution, daring, and creativity as well, unfortunately not rare occurrences either. But to present a vision of the future that contains some hopefulness of survival and triumph, while facing existential threats as great as our own, and also retaining more than a spark of familiarity with the character of humanity as we know it, makes the long and winding saga something ineffably dear to myself and so many others.
I really have no feeling for Nutrek. Obviously, it is fine to make entertaining films that features a number of well done, plausible characterizations of names we know , although I don't how crucially important that is to the director given the demographics of the audience that he has to attract to continue making the franchise a viable one.
It is pretty hackneyed to call these movies that just happen to carry the same name. Despite the ludicrousness of some of the conceits presented, there certainly is considerable imagination and craft interwoven into this divergent path. But for me, it is encased in the action and spectacle paradigm that today, perforce seems to be the requisite means to success for the blockbuster production, perhaps even more so as the relevance of the traditional film delivery platform is declining. In much younger years, I found such movies diverting and worth my attention, but not any longer.
The question of which format should represent the franchise's future, especially on television and its coming permutations, is a different one. Although my vote would be the same in this discussion, I honestly think that despite the fan offerings and very interesting and engaging projects like Renegades, the hope for a major broadcast, net/pay offering, etc. that continues the Prime Universe is a vain one that has long since sailed.
