Because that crew's last movie tanked, it would seem to me*. The TOS crew was less over-exposed at the time but still familiar to enough people to seem like a safe bet. (* Through no fault of their own FWICT, the studio had just stopped trying by that point.)
Right. It did make sense to go back to the TOS characters because they hadn't been seen on screen in almost twenty years, so they weren't as overexposed as the TNG characters had become. It's also important to keep in mind that it was written and produced by a bunch of guys who grew up on TOS. Of course they'd want to play with their childhood heroes once they got access to them.
TOS averaged 17 million viewers in the late 60's, which was considered pretty bad in a 9 channel spectrum. TNG averaged 11 million viewers in the early 90's which was considered pretty good in a 42 channel spectrum. None of the spinoffs have approached the viewership of TOS, which peaked at 29 million in 1978. A spinoff disguised as a reboot is still a spinoff.
As far as rebooting and renewal and whatnot go, this article provides a useful retrospective. (Some interesting points there: Michael Piller's role in making TNG a real phenomenon in its own right should be known to more people; Enterprise was essentially an attempt at rebooting the Trek concept without calling it by that name; JJTrek, aside from its obvious debts to Star Wars, is the realization of a couple of ideas -- Roddenberry's notion of Star Trek movie as prequel, Harve Bennett's "Academy Years" concept -- that have been floating around in Trek's system for some time.)
I'm pretty sure that Orci and Kurtzman were more fans of TNG than TOS. Abrams, an admitted non-fan, was the one who wanted to make a movie featuring Kirk and Spock.
Which had been running non-stop in strip syndication for seven years at that point and wasn't even surpassed when two shows were airing new episodes concurrently in the 90's.
This sounds suspect to me, much like claims that Abrams went out pitching Star Trek to anyone. He was and is such a pronounced non-fan (of anything other than his version, anyway) that I don't see him caring which version they rebooted. And the fact that they wound up using the opportunity to get the "Academy Years" concept into the mix strongly suggests that the idea came from someone other than Abrams, who would not plausibly either know or give a sh*t about that concept. Anyway. Not that I mean to contribute to an eternal slapfight over who's better / more famous, Kirk or Picard, because that's tiresome. My basic point is that the Trek brand grew larger in popular culture than Kirk and Spock, so claiming "Trek is Kirk and Spock" now is just mistaken. I don't understand why some people have so much trouble admitting that, but hey.
It really isn't a slap fight. I don't understand why it's so hard for some people to admit that Kirk and Spock had the biggest impact on pop-culture and are the most well known assets Star Trek has?
^ I'd be fine if we could amend your go-to claim to "when they think about Star Trek, people are likeliest to think about Kirk and Spock, but also highly likely to think about Picard and Data," which at least is accurate.
I said "general audiences", the people who aren't unabashed fans of everything Star Trek. Of course, among fans of Star Trek, things are a bit more spread out. General audience watched and liked TNG. But when the show went into reruns, folks (at least here in the States) were simply not as interested in it. Folks moved on rather quickly from TNG. It didn't have the same staying power as TOS.
There is never going to be a hard fact based resolution to this: TOS or TNG. There's so much of the subjective involved. I will hazard to say that if done right a TNG reset could work as effectively as a TOS one. I think there's enough good will and sentiment for people to give it a chance. When I look at my own ideas (even though I have my preferences) I could just as easily plug the familiar TNG characters into it and tweak them in similar fashion. I would keep the core elements of what made TNG work and jettison what didn't (you would never see Llwaxana Troi ever again ). As much as I like Star Trek there are things in it (even TOS) that I would change or jettison for today. Granted there are lot of things I would want to keep, but tweak just a bit to update them.
Agreed. I guess, various fans come to Star Trek through various shows. My first Star Trek experience was TNG in 1990's. I have watched TOS episodes, but at that time TOS wasn't so cool for me as TNG. So, in general, for me and (probably) for my generation Star Trek is Picard&Co. Perhaps, there are fans, who came to Star Trek later, and for them Star Trek is Janeway&Voyager. I think, the popularity of Star Trek versions can be regulated with extensive advertisment. ST'09 is an advertisment for TOS-era. That's why the interest to Kirk&Spock is growing.
What will be interesting is if years down the road, future rebooters start mixing and matching crews. For instance, Mr. Worf's backstory is possible in the Kirk-era as well, that of a Klingon child raised by humans. He'd arguably have more interesting character development that could be explored as a Starfleet officer in a time when Klingons are a Federation enemy.
It's simple enough to resolve. We're SciFi fans, surely at least one of us has access to a TARDIS or a Starship that could be slingshotted around the sun. That person can simply travel back in time, to before the Abrams movies, and post a poll in a non-Star Trek/Non-SciFi location, in order to get an accurate guage of the actual truth. Since we would be in the future of that's Poll's implementation, we'd simply have to go to where that Poll is and get the answer. You people just make everything so complicated
And what did you think I was talking about? This is another one of those statements that a certain bracket of fans seems to want to believe is true, but I don't see much in the way of evidence for it.
While I don't think there really is any denying that Kirk and Spock are the most iconic of Trek characters, there is also no denying that the TNG characters dominated things for nearly two decades. Right on the feet of Trek 09, people, general audiences and critics, were asking when Next Gen would get the treatment. There were whole articles drafted regarding the topic. It all comes down to one point. Star Trek can be done as a reboot, either taking an existing idea and redoing it for modern eyes, or top to bottom full on reboot. It'll work either way, as long as it is well executed and compelling.
Exactly, and this is why the "TNG is an all but forgotten spinoff" meme cuts little ice with me. If it were true, general audiences and general-interest media would show no interest in it. Hardcore Trekkies speculating about the "general audience" are a bit like fish speculating about the preferences of mountaineers, but it's not like we have no clues to work from other than our own preferences. I get that Berman had his detractors, and in the latter part of his run he no doubt deserved them. But whatever their preferences, people shouldn't be deluding themselves about what level of success TNG (and to a lesser extent DS9) achieved. That's an interesting idea.
The gist I'm getting from this thread is that some Star Trek fans are really Berman-Trek fans. Nothing wrong with that. I was one, too. But that is merely one vision, one derivative work of the original Star Trek source material (which is namely the show actually called Star Trek). It's not the only valid one. I think had Roddenberry not co-created TNG, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. The spinoffs would rightly be seen as something separate from the original Star Trek. It's Roddenberry's connection to the Berman-Trek era that keeps that particular rendition of Trek thought of by some fans as "prime."
Meh, I think it's perfectly possible to be a fan of TOS and appreciate Berman-Trek's achievements* -- at minimum as they pertain to TNG and DS9 -- simultaneously without any cognitive dissonance whatever. And I'm not aware of "that particular rendition of Trek" being thought of as "prime," since they're both technically part of the same continuity. (* And I'm more of a TOS fan these days myself, but that doesn't mean I'm on board with this weird, ambient hostility some people seem to have to the prospect of conceding any virtues or influence to TNG. It gets widespread recognition as an elaboration on, updating and extension of the original Trek because that's precisely and inarguably what it was. It entered popular culture as a core part of Trek because that's what it became; even referring to it as just a "spinoff" is redundant by this point. Whether or not one prefers or disprefers it, those are facts.)