When Nobody Wanted to Reboot 'Star Trek' article

[jefferiestubes8]

When Nobody Wanted to Reboot 'Star Trek'
http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/when-nobody-wanted-reboot-star-trek_3387

some history about the business side of the Star Trek franchise and the reboot.

 

[Trekwatcher]

Interesting, but the article feels half finished. I wish there was more info here.

 

[Peter the Younger]

Interesting article, and something we should remind ourselves of once in a while: it's a business, first and foremost, and it always will be.

It does feel like the first in a series though. I would have liked a take on what Raimi might have done to the franchise (shudder.)

 

[scottydog]

Funny how quickly I've gone from "Why reboot?" to "What took them so long to reboot?" It was a smart business decision, yes, but also a smart artistic decision.

 

[Borgminister]

But a very risky one, I'd say.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I guess...

 

[scottydog]

But a very risky one, I'd say.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I guess...

I'd say extremely risky. This movie was make-or-break for the franchise. And they hit a home run. Awesome.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Where was the risk? The Franchise was dead.

Risky would have been doing a real reboot in 2000, not 2007 - and even then, not tremendously so. You'd probably have to go back to about the time that Voyager launched, sometime in the mid-90s, to find a point at which Trek could have been substantially damaged financially by a reboot.

Interesting that they were in talks with Raimi. Wonder who Campbell would have played?

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Not to be cruel, but it was more like a make or leave it broken situation. Star Trek was dead, as in doornail.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Exactly so.

Whoever resurrected this successfully would obviously be hailed as a corporate hero - but the only person for whom a failure would have been catastrophic would be the guy who suggested that Paramount should be spending any money at all on Star Trek - not because that person would have been seen as damaging a valuable property, but because he/she would be seen as having thrown good money after bad.

 

[Borgminister]

However, we now have guaranteed new Trek; had it failed, that would've been it for a decade or more.

So I still think it was ballsy...

 

[Green Shirt]

Interesting, but the article feels half finished. I wish there was more info here.

I agree, as long as the more information would be factual.

CBS? "fathered" the series? Anybody do this guy's fact checking?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

However, we now have guaranteed new Trek; had it failed, that would've been it for a decade or more.

Yes, had it failed then Trek would have been right back where it already was.

So, as I said, the only risk was to the career of the guy who thought it was a good idea to spend money on Star Trek.

 

[TheArsenal]

I definitely - and maybe others as well - may have looked at the time table all wrong. Dead as Star Trek may have been, I thought it was a bold move to reboot Trek so close to the last episode of Enterprise; the date I would have written on Trek's tombstone.

But with all due respect to that series, no one watched it. Or Nemesis for that matter. The last time anyone really watched Trek or was aware of it was quite some years ago, meaning enough time had passed for a clean relaunch.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think was is so remarkable is that the new movie IS Star Trek right now. The franchise is focused on one venue for new productions. Which we have not had since The Voyage Home was released.

Regardless of our individual assessments of the spin-offs, each new one fractured the fanbase to one degree or another. Along with confusing the hell out of general audiences.

So the films are the total focus of praise and criticism now.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

But with all due respect to that series, no one watched it. Or Nemesis for that matter. The last time anyone really watched Trek or was aware of it was quite some years ago, meaning enough time had passed for a clean relaunch.

There is that point. If you reach back as far as the point at which Trek had shed the majority of its 1980s/1990s audience you can figure that for most folks who had ever watched Star Trek it had been well over a decade since the Franchise "went away" rather than two or three years.