Paramount Studios struggling

[publiusr]

It might be a good idea to join forces with other groups. I seem to remember a stormcon some years ago. Sci-fi convention that also had storm chasers--a more tech heavy approach.

I might have--as guests, model makers, sketch artist--maybe folks who design cars--or anime artist doing their own takes on the Enterprise.

Something new.
Trek Ted talk.

 

[DimesDan]

And as for Patrick Stewart, the less said about him not so far being scheduled for one con appearance this year, the better. And yes, I know he's doing theatre from August until the end of the year. The he and McKellen scheduled this at the time they did, almost makes it look like Stewart's sticking two fingers up at Trek. It stinks of I don't want to do Trek conventions anymore, especially on the 50th anniversary, so I'm going to be an aaaaactooooor and hide myself away in theatre so I don't have to meet the sweaty nerds.

Heaven forbid someone decides to do something like that.

 

[Trekkin]

Didn't you know that bald bastard owes us?

I don't really know how to put this, but we're kind of a big deal.

 

[Admiral Bear]

Stewart does owe Trek and its fans big time. If we'd all switched off TNG after that average at best first season, the show would've been canned, he would've gone back to Blighty with his suitcase, and carried on being a small time British stage actor that next to no one had ever heard of.

Trek made him a multi millionaire, as did the X-Men movies, a gig which he would've never got had it not been for TNG.

 

[DimesDan]

Stewart does owe Trek and its fans big time. If we'd all switched off TNG after that average at best first season, the show would've been canned, he would've gone back to Blighty with his suitcase, and carried on being a small time British stage actor that next to no one had ever heard of.

Trek made him a multi millionaire, as did the X-Men movies, a gig which he would've never got had it not been for TNG.

Words fail me.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Sad to read stuff like that.

Patrick Stewart saved Star Trek, and for me, he's done enough. I thank him for carrying a franchise on his back and giving so many people a job, and newbees like myself a chance to explore Star Trek.
Admiral Bear, I understand how you feel, but there are other ways to look at things. Scheduling and availability is becoming a huge issue because the of way programming is evolving. Agents and PR are trying to keep up.

 

[urbandefault]

Patrick Stewart saved Star Trek ... carrying a franchise on his back and giving so many people a job ...

I think that may be a bit of an overstatement.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Yeah, I think it's overstating things a bit to say Patrick Stewart saved Trek. But it's also ridiculous to claim that he "owes us" and therefore must be at the fandom's beck and call to do conventions and what not. The only thing he has ever "owed" us (and I'm using that term loosely) is good performances every time he put on his costume, and I'd say he's given us that many times over. The man still has a very healthy career, and given the choice between looking forward to new projects or rehashing what I did 30 years ago, I'd want to look forward as well.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I think it's overstating things a bit to say Patrick Stewart saved Trek.

Yeah, that's an odd way of looking at it. Trek wasn't in danger when TNG came along; it was already a thriving movie series and TNG was a way of capitalizing on its existing success. People watched TNG in droves despite the poor quality of its writing in the first season or two, so they probably still would've done so even with a relatively less compelling lead actor. I'd say Stewart played a significant role in taking Trek's popularity to the next level, but it wasn't in any great need of "saving" at the time.

But it's also ridiculous to claim that he "owes us" and therefore must be at the fandom's beck and call to do conventions and what not. The only thing he has ever "owed" us (and I'm using that term loosely) is good performances every time he put on his costume, and I'd say he's given us that many times over.

Indeed. I'm sure he's grateful to the fans, but gratitude does not require submission. He doesn't belong to us. He's his own person with his own career and his own personal life, and he has as much right as any of us to make the career and life choices that work best for him. You could just as well say that, ohh, a manager at an automobile plant "owes" the car buyers of the world for keeping her employed, but that doesn't mean those car buyers are entitled to dictate her career decisions or demand her presence at auto shows.

 

[Trekkin]

Even ignoring his stage work, Stewert had a more than reasonable career before Trek came along. His career path would probably have been different (probably a lot more historical dramas), but there's no way to be certain that it would have been worse.

I'd completely forgotten he was Karla in those 80's Smiley adaptations. Probably because Karla is one of those majorly
important characters that manages to barely make an actual appearance.

 

[Tim Walker]

Considering different posts, it sounds like Star Trek needs to be reinvented.

I'm sorry if Trek is boring to others.

 

[cardinal biggles]

It's not that it's boring, it's that TV and movie storytelling styles evolved while Trek -- Berman-era Trek specifically -- stayed relatively stagnant. Sure, they would occasionally take stabs at longer story arcs like the Dominion War or the third season of Enterprise, but it didn't evolve enough. The Abrams films are one step in that direction. What the new series will be is another. And maybe that'll leave some people behind, but continuing to tell stories the way they told stories in 1987 is not going to bring in new viewers in 2017.

 

[Taylirious]

They need to keep making those Transformers movies! 3 a year!!!

 

[Christopher]

Considering different posts, it sounds like Star Trek needs to be reinvented.

I'm sorry if Trek is boring to others.

That's not what it's about. Different versions of a franchise don't have to compete with each other. Rather, they complement each other. People have diverse tastes, and the best way to keep a franchise vital is to try to appeal to all of them. There's room in the tent for everyone, and fans who try to turn it into a war between competing tribes are ruining it for all of us. Batman fandom has room for Adam West, Kevin Conroy, and Christian Bale to exist side by side. Godzilla fandom has as much room for the goofy '70s hero Godzilla as it does for the solemn and scary original or the gritty reinventions. So why should Star Trek, a franchise that has "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" as a motto, be any less able to encompass multiple interpretations?

If other people like something you don't, that isn't a personal affront against you. It's not an invalidation of your preferences. It's just the way the world works. Feel free to like the version of Trek that you like, and respect other people's right to like a different version, and be glad that you're both able to participate in something larger. That's how fandom is supposed to work.

 

[Harvey]

This is what Paramount and several other movie studios have done when they're not confident about a movie, they ask another company to buy into rights for the movie, share both the risk and profit.

Paramount seeking foreign investment after a particularly weak year at the box office isn't indicative of anything when it comes to either movie.

 

[Christopher]

...ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY recently declared his appearance in the low-budget thriller GREEN ROOM as Stewart's finest film performance ever. You won't find it in most multiplexes yet, though he plays a Neo-Nazi leader who threatens a punk rock band. One of the band is played by ex-child actor Anton Yelchin from 15 MINUTES.

...And from a couple of Star Trek movies, where he plays Chekov. And from Terminator Salvation, where he played Kyle Reese and was the only good thing about the movie.

So not only have you besmirched Stewart himself, but also by implication Gurney Halleck, Sejanus, and that guy from LIFEFORCE. Those TV and film roles were pre-TREK.

Not to mention all the roles he played over 20 years as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company -- including King Claudius, a role he played against Sir Derek Jacobi's Hamlet in a 1980 BBC production and then reprised (far more skillfully) against David Tennant's Hamlet in 2009.

 

[cardinal biggles]

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY recently declared his appearance in the low-budget thriller GREEN ROOM as Stewart's finest film performance ever. You won't find it in most multiplexes yet, though he plays a Neo-Nazi leader who threatens a punk rock band. One of the band is played by ex-child actor Anton Yelchin from 15 MINUTES.

...And from a couple of Star Trek movies, where he plays Chekov. And from Terminator Salvation, where he played Kyle Reese and was the only good thing about the movie.

It wouldn't be a foxhot post if he weren't raising up an actor's most obscure and/or forgotten projects as their greatest work, which you're a philistine for not having seen yet.

 

[Marsden]

Don't forget he was King Leodegrance.

And King Richard the Lionheart.



Great in both roles, although Richard was after Star Trek.

 

[Trekkin]

I think his jerk psychiatrist character from Lifeforce is still winning. His blood-vomit transforms itself into naked alien vampire women!

 

[Gaith]

This Sunday I'll find out if ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY was right about Stewart's performance in GREEN ROOM.

And we require advance notice of your plans to see it... why?