I think a good number will stick around, especially those with sci fi/fantasy/horror leanings when it comes to their interests.
New Fan Retention Rate
- Thread starter Joshua Howard
- Start date
About 3 or 4.
I couldn't disagree more. Modern Trek movies will always be 'event' movies; huge sci-fi action bonanzas that sacrifice character in favour of blowing things up.
I wouldn't want Star Trek becoming synonymous with lowest common denominator filmmaking any more than it already has done.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I can only shake my head at such statements. Your logic defies reality, or is it the opposite. Harve Bennett, and now JJ, realized the military center of STAR TREK. If you don't believe it is there, then look at the biography's of the Genes again...
Go GREENPEACE!!! yeah!
Rob
I have no idea how your reply relates to anything I said.
I fear that the newbies attracted by this film will just move on to whatever the new fad is, soon enough. Pop culture has changed a lot in the last few decades. We now live in a disposable culture. Instant gratification.
The kind of grassroots fan campaigns that saved TOS are long dead, I fear.
The kind of grassroots fan campaigns that saved TOS are long dead, I fear.
See, I agree with you that Trek shines more on the small screen. You have more time to flesh out characters and tell intelligent stories. Movies will always have to cater to the 'lets blow stuff up' crowd.
That I son't believe. If that were the case Lost in Space would be one of the biggest sci fi movies in recent(ish) history.
There always has been, and always will be, a general market who will go see films for action, chebs or anything considered low brow by those who may feel superior.
If anything new movies thrive on more than that. Do you think this Trek movie would have been as successful if they cancelled out any of the emotional content of the film and did present a straight action movie fit for Van Damme?
What emotional content?
Spock and Ohura Kissing.
Is that intentionally ignoring the film or more of the denial/irrational hatred from earlier in the year? It's honestly hard to tell round here when the new film comes up.
I think in all honesty, it's way to early to tell. Any franchise to me is somewhat like a sports team. What matters to the fanbase is winning games, not much more than that. Field a great team, win a lot of games, and the stands will fill up. Field a bunch of losers, have a 3-25 record, and be greeted by empty stands. Trek XI is a good start, but it's only a start. It's like winning the home opener -- it's nice and all, but if you don't follow up with more wins, it won't last very long. People will follow some other team.
So I think we'll know somewhat after the release of STXII or the launch of the next series.
So I think we'll know somewhat after the release of STXII or the launch of the next series.
That's precisely what the great unwashed, who followed TNG in first-run syndication, did. And so what, they still bought many copies of Star Trek encyclopedias and chronologies and helped Paramount and Pocket Books make some cash. They just chose not to stick around for DS9, VOY or ENT.
Audiences moving on isn't a problem. And there'll always be a few newbies who stick around for the longer haul, just as there'll always be older fans will suddenly look around and say, "You know what, Star Trek was always crap and I regret spending my wages on this tie-in stuff?", and they drop all their interests and find new ones. Like marriage or children or fishing, or helping the homeless.
And that's a bad thing because...?
Was Saturday morning television in the 60s and 70s any less "disposable"? Did general TV audiences see TOS as anything worth pursuing beyond being a prime time repeat? Most didn't.
Obviously you haven't noticed how quickly you can spread a message through Facebook. If people are unhappy enough to protest something the will. It's only the medium that changes.
The topics of today’s students and Internet access, and its effect on literacy levels and young people's attention spans, are being hotly debated again on the various education listservs, and it was reminding me of a previous argument in the public arena in the 60s and 70s, and I just happened upon a quote that might put some of the current issues into perspective.
From Saturday morning fever: growing up with a cartoon culture by Timothy Burke & Kevin Burke (St Martin’s Griffin, NY: 1999, p 200):
“Whether it was [Spiro] Agnew or [Bob 'Captain Kangaroo'] Keeshan, or some other untrustworthy person over thirty, the basic message was the same in the late sixties and early seventies: Blame television and you get an unlimited license to condescend. Then you don’t have to explain exactly why it was bad that kids were in the streets protesting against war or why exactly dropping out and turning on was a terrible thing. The wheel keeps on turning: in the mid-seventies television got blamed for making you passive, and then once again in the eighties, it was creating violence. It’s the excuse that keeps on giving. Amazing thing, television: it can make you passive and aggressive at the same time. If you don’t like whatever it is that young people are doing, it must be television that’s to blame.”
Sounds familiar?
The world is cyclic. Things ebb and flow. Who are we to judge the choice of so-called "newbies" to partake in a little instant gratification? Who said they must stick around for the long haul just because they enjoyed a new movie of a longtime franchise? If they liked it enough they'll come back for more.
You and I obviously saw very different versions of the film.
Neither.
Shazam! and I am not Spock I totally agree with both of you.
We all know Trek started on television with around 24 episodes of 45minute+ running time. That gave time for character development as well as episode long plots.
With modern day television using multiple episodes for story arcs since "Hill Street Blues" started doing it in the early 1980s
"ER", NYPD Blue", "The Wire", "Battlestar Galactica" (2004), "Heroes" and most 1-hour drama TV episodics are just that
SOURCE SOURCE2
Here and there a Trek TV episode (TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT) is just a standalone episode but the character development does carry over to other episodes. The main plot itself is self-contained
A feature film just can't do that.
Star Trek's core lead characters on any of the Trek TV series are what glues the show together.
The last series ENT went more in that direction for the first 2 seasons being more about the characters than about the stories themselves and that is a bit of a fine line.
One of the reasons Trek even worked as a 30-minute TV show in Star Trek: The Animated Series.
It still had the core TOS characters of Bones, Spock, Kirk. (It also had the rest of the senior officer characters from TOS.)
Even though it was considered to be a 'Children's Series' since it was an animated series on Saturday mornings It was a Star Trek story
and it was taken seriously by the producers and writers who came from TOS.
It relied more on action-adventure than character development but it was the closest thing to reduced character development a Trek TV series has had. It was not action all the time. There was time for the science fiction to come through as the science part was discussed somewhat talking about an alien race or planet.
^ Yeah, I'd love another TAS, cel-animated or CGI.
I have no doubt Trek will return to the small screen one day. The wheel turns full circle. Trek began on TV, it will come back to TV. Probably not for the time being, though. However, I can see them making a CGI series (possibly as a miniseries of 30 minute episodes, featuring the voices of the movie cast, or impersonators)
I have no doubt Trek will return to the small screen one day. The wheel turns full circle. Trek began on TV, it will come back to TV. Probably not for the time being, though. However, I can see them making a CGI series (possibly as a miniseries of 30 minute episodes, featuring the voices of the movie cast, or impersonators)
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