Trek after Nemesis?
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Other than the main crew, who were mostly unknown or not-well-known actors, the supporting roles included Eric Bana, Winona Ryder, Bruce Greenwood, and Ben Cross. Bana and Ryder are the biggest names of the group, but hardly big box office draws. Compared to other movie "guest stars" Christopher Plummer, Christopher Lloyd, David Warner, Malcolm McDowell, and F. Murray Abraham and this movie is about par for course.
Unfortunately, most of Ryder's scenes ended up cut. I wondered why they made her look so old until I saw the deleted scene of Spock's birth where she's young.
Star Trek in the public mind has always been Kirk, Spock, etc.
Really? You think from 1990-1996, when TNG was the no.1 syndicated show on TV and then had two successful movies, and the TNG cast was on "Time" magazine, "ET," etc. that Kirk and Spock was what was on the public's mind regarding Star Trek?
That's nostalgia and revisionist history talking. TNG DEFINITELY made it into the pop culture mind overall, it's ridiculous to state that Star Trek has always been Kirk and Spock.
If you were a Star Trek fan born say in the mid-70s, it's possible you were a fan of Trek in the late eighties-early nineties and had never even SEEN TOS. By that time, it was rarely being re-run in good time slots, if at all in a lot of places.
Being a "Star Trek fan" for those people meant being a fan of TNG.
This is like arguing that because the Nolan Batman movies are on the pop culture mind right now, that the Tim Burton movies never really made it into pop culture either. Batman movies have ALWAYS meant Nolan.
Sonak, the only difference is that TOS was a Network show, in prime-time at a time where little else competed for attention. Yes TNG was as popular as any syndicated sci fi drama has ever been, but that is 'almost' nothing compared to any Network show then (and I'm afraid) now.
Even with lower ratings, the percentage of sets tuned into a network show is STAGGERING compared to syndicated or cable even now. Also TNG did not have a full decade of pop culture references like SNL mocking the cancellation and the fervor to bring it back then ended with TMP. You might be to young to understand the sweeping nature and mystique of Trek having been cancelled prematurely by any measure.
Yes, if you were a fan of Trek starting in 1987 then Trek would mean TNG, and yes, TV Guide voted Patrick as sexiest man on TV in 1990 i believe, but that does not mean he entered the public consciousness the way Shatner or the rest of trek did in the 70's and beyond.
Even with lower ratings, the percentage of sets tuned into a network show is STAGGERING compared to syndicated or cable even now. Also TNG did not have a full decade of pop culture references like SNL mocking the cancellation and the fervor to bring it back then ended with TMP. You might be to young to understand the sweeping nature and mystique of Trek having been cancelled prematurely by any measure.
Yes, if you were a fan of Trek starting in 1987 then Trek would mean TNG, and yes, TV Guide voted Patrick as sexiest man on TV in 1990 i believe, but that does not mean he entered the public consciousness the way Shatner or the rest of trek did in the 70's and beyond.
I wasn't trying to do a competition type of thing. Of course TOS has had more pop culture exposure because it's simply been around so much longer than any of the other Treks, and it's had so much time where it's the ONLY Star Trek product out there on the screen(from 1966-1986, and then 2009---???).
I'm just saying that Star Trek has NOT always meant only Kirk and Spock, that from about the late eighties to mid-to-late nineties, it probably meant Picard, Data, Worf, and TNG.
You're thinking like a fan. You have to step back and enter the mindset of the general public, the average guy on the street. Ask him who Worf is. Who Data is. Who Riker is. No explanations, just the names. He likely won't have a clue. TNG never had the same exposure in the public eye as TOS, even though it ran twice as long.
Now ask the same guy who Captain Kirk is. Who Spock is. Who Scotty is. You'll get quite a different answer.
Not true. Because of what's happened in the intervening years, people forget just how staggeringly popular TNG was in its heyday. Even though it was in syndication, it was routinely pulling ratings numbers that beat major network competition. At one point, it was routinely beating Monday Night Football in the ratings.
EDIT to Add: By way of comparison, I pulled the viewership numbers TNG was getting in its prime. During the 4th, 5th, and 6th seasons, TNG was averaging 10.58, 11.5, and 10.83 million viewers respectively. By comparison, over those same three years, Law & Order, which was a powerhouse for NBC, was averaging 12.0, 12.3, and 10.5 million viewers. Yes, in season six, TNG actually bested a hit primetime network show in average viewership, and in seasons four and five, it wasn't far behind.
Did TNG draw the ratings of the top shows like Friends? No. But it held its own with the networks during its run, and in fact beat many very successful network programs that were considered hits. And I would venture to say that, in its prime, had TNG actually been on a network in a stable timeslot, instead of syndicated all over the place, it might just have made it up to the very top.
TNG was described, in its day, as the highest rating one-hour drama in first-run syndication.
But... TOS had a relatively quiet three years on network TV, and then about eight very noisy years in prime time syndication: endless repeats, stripped five nights per week in the US. That's where TOS got its enormous popularity across several demographics.
Yes, for many regular viewers, TNG was its own phenomenon: a mix of TOS fans who embraced the next generation, members of the general public swept along by the huge popularity of ST IV, and new fans who didn't care about TNG's roots. In countries where "Doctor Who" had been big, ie. in the John Nathan-Turner years, that show's sudden, unexpected hiatus sent streams of rudderless young SF media fans to TNG, with many of them arriving about Season Three but having extremely scant knowledge of TOS.
Are those for the entire season or a specific week/episode? I would like to know your sources and where Law and Order placed that year in ratings in general. I am not denying that TNG was popular, but you also have to remember to make sure you are comparing apples to apples. The Neilson ratings system changed the year after TOS went off the air, breaking out the all important young adult demographic. It has been said that NBC would have NEVER pulled the plug with the new ratings system if they had it in '68-69.
I also have a hard time believing The Next Generation was beating Monday Night Football which was highly popular in the 80's and 90's. Monday Night Football was ABC's highest rated show and was regularly top 5/10.
They sound like tall tales that developed with no evidence after TNG went off the air. I did hear that TNG finished on the fringes of the Top 20 here and there but not regularly and that an ABC affiliate in Boston did replace low rated Friday night network fare with TNG in the early 90's.
EDIT: Here is a site that lists the Top 20 for the years 1990-1995...
http://www.angelfire.com/ny2/televisioncity/9095.html
I don't know about MNF specifically, and it's hard to compare syndicated shows, but it IS true that by seasons 5-7, TNG was drawing in huge numbers and WOULD have been at least among the top 20 shows if it were network.
As another poster wrote, this comes up because it's been a while and we now live in a culture with a short memory, and the TNG film franchise didn't go out so well, but the show WAS hugely popular during the latter part of its run.
a: If that's the case, looks like I'm gonna be staying home, since Jar Jar Abrams and his Star Wa....er, Trek...left a nasty flavor in my mouth. Than again, this is the same hack who made Lost.
b: If that 'non-existing' audience means someone who does not have a short attention span, and does not mean only watching science fiction with large battles, explosions every 30 seconds, and forgettable villains of the week....looks like I'm part of an endangered species.
Seems like ONLY the mainstream...aka Joe Sixpack, Dancing With the Stars Crowd, the Spaghetti 'n Chips brigade, or the "I don't have a short attent--ooooo, shiny!" crowd get any attention.I mean I used to be a big time Transformers fan, but since now it seems that any and all Transformers will now be based on Bayformers all the time, now I am seriously considering quitting being a Transfan, since it seems to be nothing but reboots, and that it now should be called "The Bumblebee Show!"
I just feel (fear?) that cerebral science fiction is dead.
Now, I'm not JJ Abrams's biggest fan.
But the whole "Jar Jar Abrams" schtick is getting old. Sure, I could constantly refer to Berman and Braga (B&B) as Beavis and Butthead, but I don't because it's repetitious name-calling and prevents me from actually being capable of elaborating on my thoughts beyond
"Beavis and Butthead are dumb because they like Jeri Ryan's tits and space lizards trolololol."
But the whole "Jar Jar Abrams" schtick is getting old. Sure, I could constantly refer to Berman and Braga (B&B) as Beavis and Butthead, but I don't because it's repetitious name-calling and prevents me from actually being capable of elaborating on my thoughts beyond
"Beavis and Butthead are dumb because they like Jeri Ryan's tits and space lizards trolololol."
Considering I have not liked any of this stuff whatsoever, I shall call him anything I want. I mean people calling TMP "The Slow Motion Picture" or "The No Motion Picture" is old, too, but I live with it.
One can elaborate and still put down the guy as well.
Because, and not just my own opinion of his work, but many others, I have just one word to describe the type of success he has today.
Lucky.
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