Most people are fans of whatever is in front of their face at the time. Only a small minority bother to stay interested in something when they are not being constantly prodded to remain fans by new material.
That's why the notion of "building appetite for
Star Trek" by not producing any is bunk. That's the way for
Star Trek to be
forgotten.
Ideally,
Star Trek needs a TV series in production as well as movies coming out every 2-3 years. Even if it must be a cartoon series like
The Clone Wars.
Good old George Lucas, he may suck at writing, directing and casting, but he knows how to maintain a successful franchise from a business viewpoint. Shove
something out there, all the time, if only so that you can sell more toys. The fans are whoever is giving you money right now; others don't matter. Too bad with the film and TV rights split between two entities, there's no such coherent strategy for
Star Trek.
So what? If the movie's fun, I can live with a nunuKirk and co.
And it's worth reminding everyone that the whole thing could have been wretched, especially if they'd mucked up the casting of key characters. Spock in particular is a character I'd never have guessed could be recast.
Trek XI could have been, well maybe not as bad as the
Star Wars prequels, but close.
One downside to Trek getting the blockbuster treatment is that it is highly subject to the whims and fancies of the movie business, something even more unpredictable and mercurial than the TV business,
Neither business is subject to "whims and fancies" any more than others would be - dog food, toothpaste, etc. Both have overriding aspects of their status quo, that are very difficult to buck, and long-term trends.
For movies, it's that sci fi in space is highly successful, and must involve action and explosions. The long-term trend is more of the same. For
Star Trek, that means that future movies will be like
Trek XI: whatever intelligence and character growth happens, it will be shoehorned between explosions and it won't be anything like what TV could do.
For TV, it's that sci fi in space is highly unsuccessful so that nobody wants to do it, and the long term trend is towards more niche programming on cable aimed at highly specific tastes, with the remaining broadcast audience being served by very very mainstream stuff. Sci fi can barely survive on broadcast; forget about space based sci fi. For
Star Trek, and leaving aside the disconnect between Paramout and CBS, this means that the only slim hope is Showtime,
if they decide to take a risk on a space based show of any sort. But if they did, it could be an awesome show.
But I'd take even Threshold and TATV over no Trek on TV at all. And I persist in believing there's a way to make Star Trek both creatively and financially successful on TV. New people would be in charge, so past failures wouldn't be an indication of future failure. They might find all new ways to fail, but I'd like to see them try.
